Category Archives: Sailing Through Life

It’s not just albums

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Mariner’s family and friends have experienced some shuffling in the last few years. A close family member passed away as did a few friends. Other friends have moved. The children and grandchildren live in far away places, leaving a lot of possessions in the wrong house. Family deaths have required a search through ancient mementos and meaningful collections.

But finding family photo albums isn’t enough. Today, recent photographs, correspondence and historical documentation are found on primitive computers, cassettes, CD Discs, old camera filmstrips, extracted memory cards, and old memory towers. Plus, thousands of important documents and family information still on our own computers have been lost for years. After his grandmother died, he remembers finding a small box that had dozens of handwritten correspondence between his grandmother and a broad range of family members.

Mariner’s wife recently super-cleaned the attic and found about a half dozen cassettes. We had no choice but to purchase a cassette reader and discovered a golden collection of family events recorded for posterity. This motivated mariner to go through his dusty-in-a-box CD collection. There were hundreds of forgotten jewels of family history, trips and meaningful moments. He had to buy a CD player in the process.

So his advice to readers is don’t be satisfied because you have a shelf full of photograph albums. Unlike old collections which may be lost in the attic, photographs taken by a smartphone are as safe as the smartphone is dependable. Today, smartphones capture 92.5% of all pictures; the typical smartphone user stores 2,795 photos in their camera. Further, few paper copies of important documents exist – they may be on our computers somewhere – maybe.

In today’s electronic world, written historical accounts are extremely rare – though mariner must acknowledge that his wife hand writes an account every year in a special binder. If any of us are famous, someone may write an account of our lives. Otherwise, don’t stop with albums; you may find a treasure in an old Crown Royal sack.

Ancient Mariner

The other side

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Mariner has had 38 distinct jobs in his life. Everything from delivering newspapers to a contract in Taiwan building a computer system for the nation’s first fighter aircraft. He can avow that jobs shape one’s ethic and one’s place in the culture. He has had luxury dinners with CEOs and generals; he has seen a dead dog in the basement of a row house with an unused kitchen and a destitute family. He could go on about a 90-year-old woman offering sex for 75⊄, confrontations with guard dogs, a bull and an armed woman – to say nothing about belligerent executives.

But this post isn’t about bar stool stories. Of the 38 distinct jobs in his life, four have had a profound impact on his ethic, philosophy of life and his role in society. In chronological sequence they are gas & electric meter reader, Methodist preacher, parole officer and coding supervisor for an insurance company.

During 4½ years as a meter reader, he visited the homes of the very, very poor, the laborer, the white collar worker, the wealthy and many homes that were converted to small businesses and one-nite motels. These visits provided a belief that the separation of economic classes is severe, unfair and ignored by society. Each culture has its own style of community interaction, behavioral mores and even its own dress code.

As a Methodist preacher, he learned that religion is a specialized form of politics. The Christian theology is not a mainstay; the vast majority of church goers accept a parochial set of beliefs born out of tradition rather than faith. The socializing effect of belonging to a community is a positive trait but the church building is more important. Few attendees abide by the Second Great Commandment.

Mariner was a parole officer for three years. The job exposed him to the more complex side of human experience. Life is made up of many stresses that present emotional injury, loneliness, passive/aggressive behavior, debt, health and stressed relationships due to mental disorder and abuse. He learned that the personal side of life has its own mores, taboos and rituals. As with economic classes, home life is given little importance by community or by society in general.

This last job is cited because of its similarity to today’s Trumpian world of work. Mariner worked as a supervisor in the data processing department of a large insurance company. Like every other business of its time, the computer language was COBOL. Suddenly, thanks to IBM and Microsoft and Apple, COBOL was dropped in favor of new technologies and coding methods. In the blink of an eye, mariner was laid off. All the other large companies had simultaneous layoffs for the same reason. Locally, he was left without a career. It took a long time to rebuild a career in another field. His learned ethic is that corporations are politically independent and feel no need to incorporate themselves into the worlds of workers. Just profit, profit, profit.

Humans are intelligent and very much a caring species. It seems to mariner that humans, like 3-year-olds, have no sense of decorum and make life difficult just because they can. Given overpopulation, environmental abuse and provoking Mother Nature, perhaps humans should clean out the pantry and start over again.

Ancient Mariner

 

Mariner warned about this

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The biotech company Colossal Biosciences has long aspired to bring back the extinct woolly mammoth, which roamed the Northern Hemisphere thousands of years ago  during the last ice age. But for now, as a step along the way, the company has come up with something decidedly less mammoth: meet the woolly mouse.

What was the purpose of this feat of genetic engineering? Colossal’s pitch is that, with biodiversity going the way of the dodo (which the company also hopes to resurrect), saving existing species will require tweaking their DNA to make them more resilient.

In other words, Colossal has decided to fire the planet’s ecosystem and take charge of the planet’s evolution process. Ain’t the mouse cute? Just think, your great grand children will be able to go to Walmart to pick from a menu what their children will look like – sort of like buying a puppy.

Well, mariner could use some hair . . .

Ancient Mariner

More about happy

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Recent posts were about finding a happy place to live. There is no question that the US is, generally, an unhappy place to live. The economic pressures putt on the citizenry are unheard of and the President already is making financial stability a disappearing phenomenon for everyone. Still, Donald doesn’t (yet) own small happy places or one’s personal memories.

Seriously, everyone must survive each day with at least a little satisfaction that life is worth living. Often, we must force ourselves to insert satisfaction into our daily life. His daughter has a supper routine where everyone around the table must identify a rose, then identify a thorn. A rose expresses the high point of the day, a fun moment, an accomplishment, or an interpersonal action. The thorn represents the opposite: a low point in the day, a frustration or failure. Even their 4-year-old must participate. Besides the benefit of sharing with one another, the exercise makes one focus on what good events feel like as well as preventing bad memories from being the only memories.

It is possible to deliberately set up a discharge of bad feelings by performing a deliberate action for that purpose. For example, play with children – the more active, the better; get outside with them and romp meaninglessly while the good vibes rise to the surface. The same can be applied with loved pets; take a walk, go to the ice cream parlor for a shared treat or toss a stuffed toy or ball. Cats like to cuddle and play hunting games with a toy or treat. Or use Zen practices designed for the same purpose – go deep and let go. Go somewhere where you have good vibes.

The challenge is to get outside the negativity that has been forced on you. The old saw about two sides make up one coin is true. If negative feelings are dominating, turn the coin over – there’s a whole new fun world there. The ability to turn the coin over at will is made difficult today by industrial distractions. One will not achieve happiness scrolling a smart phone or a television set. If one is truthful, these devices are a sedative – a lot like oxycodone and not a cure.

Discovering positivity requires physical action, change of routine and a focus free of typical responsibilities. A smart phone is not the same as walking in the woods – well maybe it can be pretended as such but that’s the difficulty in taking happiness advice from a circuit board. Go personal! Use that body of yours for fun!

Ancient Mariner

 

Best measure of national content

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Generally speaking, the way a nation measures its economic health is by measuring its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP is an economic phrase that means ‘how much profit ls generated’. Since the Second World War, the US economic strategy has been ‘big is better’ leading to large, monopolistic corporations, international trade control and sustaining controlled inflation/deflation. Donald reminds us of how profit is manipulated through tariffs. As things stand today, the United States is the wealthiest nation in the world.

But something doesn’t seem right. Would it then be true that small is worse? Does this delineation lead to hoarding the better and ignoring the worse? Afraid so, that’s how capitalism works. Charity is okay as long as it is voluntary. Mandated charity (Is that like a penalty for being wealthy?) is verboten.

GDP is just one item in a long table of contributing issues as to what makes a nation happy – not just wealthy. In population polls of all the nations, the US is ranked 16th to 23rd in most polls and one source reports the US at 63rd) as a ‘happy’ nation. It is interesting but clearly demonstrative that certain elements of society play a larger role than ‘bigger is better’. Eleven of the top twelve happiest nations are dominated by a similar social structure. They are:   Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Australia, Switzerland, New Zealand and Costa Rica.

This conclusion is based on Gallup polling data collected over the past three years from 143 countries, with researchers evaluating six critical factors: gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption both internally and externally.

֎ GDP per capita. ‘Per capita’ means per person rather than the typical use to measure a nation’s situation. This measurement is the average income of all citizens individually. It includes not only well-to-do citizens but citizens from all income levels – including those with no income.

֎ Social Support. This category includes government programs that support the citizenry, e.g., Medicare, Social Services, child care, social security, food stamps, minimum wage, etc.

֎ Healthy Life Expectancy. This category focuses on price controls for various costs related not only to health and prescriptions but also to assisted living and living conditions generally.

֎ Freedom to make life choices. Distracting issues like racism, class discrimination, sexual constraints like birth control, abortion and homosexuality, education policy, restrictions caused by disruption from zoning, home owner associations, tax and insurance policies, and corporate intrusion all impose on an individual’s desire to make independent decisions about life choices.

֎ Generosity. There are two types: government and citizenry. It is a matter of behavioral attitude for both. Governments can be oppressive and finite about social policy or they can adopt some awareness of social need and exception. A US example is the battle over minimum wage, which is far behind the effects of inflation. Food stamps and rental policies which avoid competitive pricing are other examples.

On the citizenry side, Housing Associations are notorious for constraining individual desires. Another is the atmosphere of unanimity in communities. [In a recent post, mariner alluded to the influence of a common industry and multi-generational families contributing to a unified society.] Large corporations can choose to support employee needs outside the workplace by ‘joining the community’ or simply impose their presence in a way that can, in the extreme, wipe out a whole neighborhood.

֎ Perceptions of corruption both internally and externally. This category is likely to be the real reason the US is ranked as the 23rd happiest nation. Corruption is de rigueur in the US. Since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, unions have been busted, the tax code is dangerously imbalanced, elected officials see their own security and lifestyle as more important, rental prices are not competitive, Corporate America is completely self-managed and owes no support for American society. Lest we go on . . . .

Many times mariner has heard the comment, “If Trump buys Canada, where else can I move?” Try Finland, perpetually the happiest nation in the world.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Where is everyone?

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Mariner has written many posts about how social relationships are affected by economics, industrialism and technology. Most often, the relationship turns out to be a visible impact on specific generations. Because of the age break in generations, typically twenty years, and because the average active lifespan of humans has been around three generations, he has proposed that every sixty years a community will have significant social and economic changes.

For example, small to medium rural towns have followed the ‘sixty’ rule for three successions. The first significant change occurred around the turn of the century (1900) when automobiles and tractors changed farm practices and opened direct marketing of farm products to a much larger territory. Suddenly, in just a few years, farms had to be much larger to accommodate supply and demand. Access to a railroad line was a big advantage.

This shift in economics took an entire generation’s time to buy and sell farms, switch from horses to machinery, and to modify farm production. The population did not shift notably because these changes required lots of rural support from family farms to family banks to farm industries.

Forty years later World War II intervened. Farm families experienced the first significant migration away from rural population to factories in cities and joining the military which offered generous college benefits to GIs.

Rounding out the first 60-year loop, a large industrial influence was an active era of building US highways, interstates, train, bus and air services. This made it easier for an entire generation to leave local areas to seek better income and education. Many GIs took advantage of college benefits to leave farming for other careers.

This was during the 1960s. In 1964 Mariner moved from a big eastern city to this small town. The social structure still was dominated by large, multi-generational families. But something was missing. In the sixties, almost an entire population of high school graduates left for college and commercial opportunities elsewhere. Mariner was able to enjoy a still-functioning farm culture, a unique experience for him. But by the 1970s and especially into the 1980s, ‘family’ farms no longer existed; not only did high school students leave but many families sold smaller farms because of economic pressures.

The third 60-yearloop, until today, has seen a further drop in population which caused most small businesses to disappear, churches began to suffer from dropping attendance and the active farm culture was not the social influence it once was. The town, slowly through to today, has become a residential neighborhood where jobs are found elsewhere.

Mariner and his wife, now seasoned members of the town, have noticed the final phase of the third 60-cycle: Friends are dying; family members are dying; most of the town is populated by newcomers. No one knows everyone anymore. It is becoming a town which has no connection to its past.

When he moved back to town, mariner memorized all the street names in the town as an aid to finding his way around. Still, old folks, when he asks where someone lives, most often will say, “You know, over behind Carl’s old house.” Mariner lives in a section of town where until many decades ago a farm was across the road; older residents still cite that farm.

Mariner and his wife are losing friends and relatives rather frequently. Where is everyone?

Ancient Mariner

What?

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Seasoned readers know mariner is old. He has been old long enough to recognize that there are new habits about every phase of life. From time to time he will recognize his new ‘old-age’ habits. There was the time when he was breaking the shell of a soft boiled egg for breakfast. Born a natural left-hander who was forced to pretend to be right-handed when learning to write, with the egg he was aware that only his left hand knew how to correctly break the shell; if he damaged his left hand, the right hand simply wouldn’t be up to the job. Probably, mariner wouldn’t eat soft boiled eggs again.

He has seen science shows that show how advanced the technology is for artificial limbs. But he wonders, do artificial hands have palsy?

This post, however, focuses on how brain habits shift because of hearing loss. On the surface, it’s all about sound waves, echos, poor speaker technology and the slippery way folks slide through their words and stop breathing when it comes to the predicate clause.

But the brain adapts to this inefficiency. Think about it: With normal hearing the brain, with no time delay whatsoever, interprets what words are spoken, compensates for echoes and other interfering noises, understands context, mood, relevancy and other implications included in the sounds of words. And at the same time applies internal judgment about the greater circumstances affected by the conversation. Simple example: Someone says “The world is flat.” In the same instant the brain hears ‘flat’ it has formed a reaction. No extra time was needed.

It is this ability of the brain to instantaneously receive, interpret and manage the circumstances of speech that disappears when hearing is affected. Mariner suspects that if someone had full hearing restored after a lengthy time of deafness, for awhile their brain would still use the altered habits that filled in for awkward reasoning processes. The brain would have to relearn the mental processes that are instantaneous with normal hearing.

The common reality for hearing deficiency is that the brain grabs and holds onto a few key words, typically the most clearly enunciated words, then tries simultaneously to add words and searches for general meaning – while the person talking continues talking. If a conversation includes talking about several comparative instances at once, or if the person excessively uses pronouns, or if any of the aforementioned external disturbances occur, the brain looses touch. Then comes the brain saying “What?”

So the biggest change that occurs with hearing loss is not the mechanics of sound waves but how the brain processes what it is hearing – which is nowhere near instantaneous comprehension; even continuity is fragile.

Ancient Mariner

Collections

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What does the reader collect? Books of fiction? perhaps many cookbooks or manuals or business notes or hobbies? Mariner’s wife is a librarian, an avid fiction reader, and has a collection of books about authors. Mariner’s life has been a knock about life jumping from job to job, from hobby to hobby, from theology to physics to Pogo comic books to collections of tapes, discs and books about TV shows and popular music.

Mariner and his wife have built a tornado shelter made of books and CDs. But it is that time. It comes for everyone: the collections gather dust; some books have vanished from memory until they are found among boxes of books kept in the attic because the bookshelves are full, many books are inherited from parents and family, many reflect hobbies and interests long past their time. But time and circumstance persist: it may be the right thing to pare the collection to a needed minimum.

This is a hard moment. Books are part of our existence. Books are full of memories just like our brain. As an experiment, pull out an old book from a certain time in your life. Leafing through its pages, you are transported to another time, another version of your life. These are meaningful memories.

Mariner’s habit of using metaphors may explain, perhaps, why one feels so protective of their collections. First, a description of the example: Telomeres are tiny hairs on the end of each chromosome. Their job is to count the number of times a chromosome can reproduce itself. Eventually, the hairs fall away and the chromosome will stop reproducing itself. The term for that is ‘aging’.

That is exactly why collectors are hesitant to give away their collections: a book is a telomere. Casting away the collection is paramount to acknowledging the end is drawing near. We are no longer producing our lives.

But the ‘chromosome’ will, at a given moment, surrender its telomeres for practical purposes – usually when having to move to another home.

Yes, like a telomere, books are part of our internal life experience. Nevertheless, time requires the transition.

Ancient Mariner

Nothing Personal

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Mariner has lamented the present along with many of us, and the political collapses, the cultural stress brought on by modern travel, the plight of social media. But it is the big four {global warming, population, biomass and artificial intelligence) that will shape Homo sapiens’ long term future. While provoked by human history, they are no longer dependent on obnoxious human behavior. The big four now are on their own history track regardless of the misfortunes of politics, war and obsessive invention.

A snapshot of human wellbeing in the year 2125 will be in the hands of the Big Four:

⊕ GLOBAL WARMING. Even as scientists have begun to pursue new technologies to deal with carbon in the atmosphere, other perspectives may not be as ‘easily’ cured. Climate change, in terms of global weather patterns, does not dance only with carbon excess. Volcanoes and earthquakes play along more slowly, the Earth’s core is out of rotational sync enough that a magnetic polar reverse has begun and the Sun will join in every 11 years or so. Further, humans are playing carnival games but the earth is not a game. Earth is a large planet capable of Solar System behavior on its own terms (Humans must remember that in reality they own nothing; it all belongs to Mother Earth).

When it comes to natural resources versus population, there is a correlation:

⊕ POPULATION and BIOMASS. From National Geographic:

“The global population is currently about 7.3 billion. The UN estimates that by 2050, that number will grow to 9.7 billion. By 2100, 11.2 billion people will have to cram together on the Earth’s surface. These estimates outstrip last year’s projections by around 150 million people.”

From UN: “Biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, deforestation, water and food shortage—these are all exacerbated by our huge and ever-increasing numbers. Our impact on the environment is a product of our consumption and our numbers.”

The impact of population and natural resources together has altered nature in many different ways. Take one very small example – vertebrates:

Ten Thousand years ago was just yesterday: Agricultural communities developed approximately 10,000 years ago when humans began to domesticate plants and animals. By domesticating species, many groups of people were able to build settled communities and transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle dependent on foraging and hunting for survival. [National Geographic]

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. There is a recent documentary on Netflix featuring an interview with Bill Gates (What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates) where in the long term he cedes (without using words) that Homo sapiens will lose out to artificial intelligence.

Mariner is at a loss to predict the future. It is obvious that Homo is as susceptible to the forces of nature as any known collection of molecules, neutrons, atoms and electrons. Who knows, perhaps the rumors of space aliens traveling the universe is our future.

Do spaceships have recliners or battery chargers?

Ancient Mariner

 

The good life

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Living here in a small town is very pleasant. The local folks are engaged in the practice of survival, that is, participating in community activities in various holiday celebrations, neighborly exchanges of small gifts and visitations, and multi-generational family gatherings. There is a positive air covering the town!

Nevertheless, only because few residents want to talk about it or still watch broadcast news and have ignored social media’s tendency to fawn upon itself, it is almost possible to separate community from national and world catastrophe. One forgets how pleasant normal life can be.

It’s amazing how many hobbies surface during the holidays. A service organization is building a tiny house for a veteran; the quilting club is turning out quilts for sale; several folks make their own holiday greeting cards – some quite exquisite; many choirs perform musical events around the county; there are Santa events in most public service agencies. Even Nosey Mole was seen wearing a Santa hat.

Appropriately, if not conveniently, the weather outside is frightful but the fire is so delightful, and since we’ve no place to go let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

There is no doubt that a human’s emotional survival skills have evolved with significant intensity and purpose. Let us pray that increased disorder will not test them further.

Ancient Mariner