This is an awkward post to write. First, it’s mostly about the mariner himself. Secondly, it is about others who have impressed mariner only to intensify his rambling, unmanageable mind. Controlling a thread of meaningfulness written by a wandering mind about a wandering mind is fraught with digression.

See?

The common term is attention deficit disorder. AD folks often talk about forgetting things and places and forgetting tasks. In his early years and throughout his career, mariner did not have much difficulty with forgetting (do not count ignoring). Almost entirely, it was keeping a thought long enough to be completed. Within seconds, mariner’s mind would jump off the focus of a task, a conversation, a situation to be resolved.

When mariner was a toddler, he remembers learning to speak and understand how words related to reality. Then he learned that there was another form of speech called writing. Very frequently mariner would drift into thoughts about talking and writing and the experience of applying language. Forever – even to today – mariner is willing to ponder what life must have been like during the great vowel shift; that time when the letters O-U-G-H had no specific sound. Examples are enough, slough, bough, thought, etc. Why these specific letters? At the same time, spelling was not an exact science. One can read handwritten letters from important people who lived around 1400 – 1750 and spelled words as they saw fit. A spelling bee in those times wouldn’t have had a chance. Mariner digresses.

Mariner always has been distracted easily by new perspectives. For example, he wrote a post recently that proposed each brain talks differently. Not knowing this can lead to condescension and belittlement. Has the reader ever thought during a problem solving conversation, “He doesn’t understand where I’m going with this.” No, he doesn’t but he is thinking the same thing about you.

When mariner and his wife were in the early days of their courtship, he posed the fox and rabbit puzzle to her. How many fox strides would it take for the fox to catch the rabbit if the rabbit took shorter but more frequent strides? She took a sheet of paper and began drawing cute little bunnies in a straight line across the page. Larger fox icons were drawn above. Mariner was quite taken by a graphic solution to an algebraic problem. What his wife had done was design a tool to measure the solution without algebraic input; she designed a yardstick with a dual scale – exactly like a yardstick with metric on one edge and inches on the other. Today, his wife doesn’t bother with solving; she goes straight to the answer. After years of professional library service, his wife is as good as Google. Mariner digresses.

But before mariner digresses, he learned about two Native American brothers who spoke poor English. They were carpenters. A common practice among carpenters is for one to build and measure and the other to cut lumber according to the measure. Not speaking English well and especially not versed in fractions and feet, they had developed a telegraph-like code to share exact lengths. The code consisted of raps on wood of different durations and repetitions; feet were a scraping sound; less than an inch was a quick series of taps. Aren’t these digressions fascinating? Perhaps the reader can think of another method for communicating.

Very quickly, we have traversed a great range of distraction moving from toddler to mediaeval language to his wife’s graphic algebra to wood rapping Indians. It is a pleasant environment unless one is obsessive compulsive. Mariner watched a neighbor pressure wash his truck and RV immediately upon pulling into his driveway despite the fact that it was raining. Mariner digresses.

What was the topic? Oh, yes: The Social Skill of Conversation. In his younger years, mariner, like most of us, was able to handle two thoughts at the same time. Not exactly at the same time because the brain automatically prioritizes what is most important but can switch back and forth almost instantaneously. The switching time slows dramatically as we roll through our sixties. Further, if we delay long enough or intently enough on the second thought, the first thought is gone.

Mariner, as he has demonstrated, has a wandering brain. Any second, any microsecond, he will be drawn to another subject entirely then another and another – whatever occupies his thoughts. Consequently, he can participate in conversations that are speculative or problem solving in nature but fails miserably at standard, sociable chitchat. Mariner’s slowing brain has difficulty recovering focus with general conversation. His term for typical conversational patterns is ‘show and tell’ – a term referencing that time in elementary school when each student in turn went to the front of the class to tell about their summer. It was then that mariner first began to draw stick-figure pictures to occupy his mind. In later years, he was interested in body language and became an art major in high school. Mariner digresses.

To illustrate his failure at conversational skills, he will describe a common experience when having lunch at a senior center. Everyone easily had several years of age beyond retirement. Inevitably, everyone shared their memories and experiences about the many years behind them. The most common topic was a conversation about who was related to whom three generations ago and which houses they lived in. Embarrassingly, mariner often was caught not listening. The leader would call on him for his opinion and he had to climb from a deep vacant hole confessing he was distracted. This pattern of distraction has wandered into general conversation. Someone will be talking to mariner and at a certain point will pause to allow his response. Too many times he is alerted to the situation by a lingering silence.

It isn’t that he has a vacant mind. He is intently thinking about some distracting idea, issue, conundrum or other abstract (if not abstruse) topic. What has begun to fail is mariner’s mental discipline when it is not appropriate to wander. He speculates that it is a condition similar in old age to physical conditioning or arthritis: use it or lose it.

Further, he had an insight into cultural influence on one’s self when he became a grandfather. The torch had been passed to the next generation – those full of responsibility, career, lifestyle, and pursuit of identity. Grandfather can take a break from toeing the line.

So he has.

Ancient Mariner

Her name is Nova. It is a celebration by the family, definitely a high point of the year. Many acts of recognition and admiration will occur this year and many years to come.

Mariner has mixed feelings about the term ‘grandfather.’ In Japan there is a practice wherein old, wise men – elderly judges, politicians, heroes and the like – are recognized, indeed revered for their wisdom and leadership. With great ceremony they are elevated to special stature where their wisdom can be available to the society when needed. Trouble is, no one ever asks them anything. In reality, they are removed from participation in daily life. Perhaps too much wisdom spoils the pot…

The US has a term ‘grandfathered in’ originally used to exempt poor voters from new restrictions on voting during Reconstruction (still occurring). The term is used when something is out of date but because it is difficult to ignore or dismiss, it is included with a newer topic that really is about something else. So it is that mariner has been grandfathered in.

Readers are familiar with the sport equivalent called the Hall of Fame. Very much like the Japanese version, outstanding athletes are given a high court send-off to revered photograph galleries – implying if not actually saying, “You can’t play well anymore but we remember when you could.” No one ever drafts these sport heroes for a current game.

One conjures that in earlier civilizations where an extended family of several generations constituted a tribe or band, the older wiser men were revered and central to the function of the organization. Alas, this is not the case. Note this quote from the Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College:

“… Band leaders generally have temporary political power at best, and they do not have any significant authority relative to other adults. They can give advice and propose action, but they do not have the formal authority to require others to accept their decisions.”

So mariner is a grandfather. He needs to find an acceptable photograph for the family Hall of Fame.

That is as it should be. The most important item is Nova – the new generation, the new hope, the new future participant in human society – Nova, mariner’s new granddaughter.

Mariner advises his son – one day he will be a grandfather.

Ancient Mariner

Do you know what dry rot is? Have you ever seen old wood that looks like wood but is hollow because there is no pith left? Have you ever lifted what seemed to be a piece of cloth but it crumbled into a dry powder in your hands? Have you ever found an old box of cards exposed to dampness and when you tried to read them they would fall apart in fragile disarray? It is a condition of decay. It looks okay until one tries to use it in a useful way. Suffering from dry rot, it is not up to the task. It is a ghost, an ash of its creation.

Humans are susceptible to the same decay.

We work from day to day surviving the constant pressure that wears us down until one day we are in dry rot. We look human; we look functional; we feel we are the substance of our birth. But we are a ghost who breathes, eats, pontificates, and pretends to be valuable. We are just dry rot. Called to task, we crumble into uselessness.

This is too bad. Just as in material things, there are defenses to prevent dry rot in ourselves. Just as we seek to prevent rust in our tools; just as we maintain our houses; just as we maintain functionality in our vehicles; just as we maintain static rituals that keep order in our lives – we can introduce defenses that keep our lives rich and full and pliable against the vagaries of living. We can avoid dry rot to our last day.

One way is to keep the mind flexible. Deliberately pursue new ideas that test your opinions. Deliberately allow yourself to be confronted by social progress. Deliberately investigate the value of lifelong beliefs. Deliberately pursue new physical experiences and challenges. Dry rot cannot accumulate in the presence of newness.

Another avenue is to pursue new information as literally as you pursue physical fitness. The precursor to intellectual flabbiness is lack of intellectual exercise. The best avenue is reading. Television will draw you away; Internet will draw you away; weariness will draw you away. Where can you find new nutrients to prevent the emptiness of dry rot?

The answer is both far reaching and personal. As a simple example of maintaining flexibility in our contemporary lives, the mariner and his wife scramble for first read of the Atlantic magazine. We have observed that the Atlantic, along with the New Yorker magazine, Scientific American and an array of Internet websites, provide us with a constant barrage of new ideas, new reports on a rapidly changing culture, new interpretations of old, dare we say sacrosanct rituals, and new views of the future that emerge beneath our feet.

Using the technology of broadcasting, deliberately check in on other news channels besides NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. One would be surprised at the perspectives of news channels sponsored by China, Great Britain, Arabic broadcasting and European news networks. Even Canada has a different slant on the importance of news.

Certain channels like Bloomberg offer educational programs that broaden one’s understanding of the world. Exploring newness is the best defense against dry rot – even new physical experiences.

The mariner can attest that age is an ally of dry rot. It makes the challenge of being a purposeful human being in the world even greater. One must overcome frailties; one must garner strength from task to task. But one should never allow retreat from an active life about which to take control.

At the other end of the spectrum, the young have no perspective on the amount of energy wasted on frivolousness. The young must discipline themselves to ask what the future holds and how they will play a role. They, too, will be challenged by the willingness to recede into dry rot.

Ancient Mariner