ON MY MOTHER'S SIDE

  The difference between Read and Study is profound. Fiction will entertain but study requires reading or listening with the ability to stop, take notes, review, reread and even start over. Since they took my keys and reassigned my classroom to a younger, more affordable teacher I have plenty of time to read or study as I choose. Long story short; when I was going into the business it was an insatiable curiosity and need to know that drove me and not so much an appetite for entertainment. Now, when I sit down to write I seldom get very far before I need to research something I had not expected and am drawn away from my original idea. That puts me digging in a new hole and it takes some discipline to stay on task. 
I was trained in the school of science and critical thinking. The whole idea is relatively new, only a few hundred years since Galileo turned that corner and tradition is slow to change. Myself, I’m not all that smart but I pay attention to scholars who count molecules and know where to look for the human genome. Fear and imagination combined are still entrenched in the human condition. Both belonging and fitting in are usually more important than challenging the myth or pushing the boundaries. 
I find it irresistible, what it means to be human and our collective backstory. Whenever I find a reliable source that clarifies that meaning or expands that story I start taking notes. A good definition seems a good way to start. Anthropology; The study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental/social relations, and culture. In my notes I would emphasize; (through time and space). As a disclaimer I want to note that time is not an objective reality, but rather a human-made system for organizing and understanding the sequence of events. Without a way to measure and apply that sequence we could not function as we do. I had to find ways to appreciate if not visualize so many zeroes. But you have to find a way if you want the view to fit the frame. 
I want to imagine what I might say to one of my ancestors if I could bring us together in that slice of space and time. If I figure four generations per century (a plausible estimate) the math is easy. If I could restore even for an afternoon all of my maternal grandmothers going back in time to when Christopher Columbus set sail; how many places should I set at the table? Take a head count from then until now; 4.5 centuries times 4 = 18 grandmas. Compound those numbers another 4.5 centuries and there are 36 grandmas (all in the same line) stretching back to about 1066, William The Conquerer and the Norman victory over Anglo-Saxon rule in England. That 36th grandma on my mother’s side, she would have been alive somewhere. My takeaway is the small number of grandmas and the long stretch of time; not all that many conceptions to get maybe a few of her genes down to me. 
Still, that long, unbroken line of procreation is linear with a beginning that reaches back a lot farther in time and grandmas than 900 years or #36. The human backstory goes back at least forty thousand (40,000) years to small clans of hunter-gatherers who sustained a stable culture for 400 centuries; times 4 and somewhere lost in ancient prehistory there I have about 1,600 grandmas on my mother’s side. 1,600 generations in 400 centuries, not that many when I think about it. They were all born, grew up, lived, gave birth and died as the way of this life has always required. 
I find it ironic that the universe is birthing new stars and planets as others are turning super nova and being consumed by black holes. Here on Earth eight billion humans have been persuaded that something mysterious is in control and we are more special than the planet itself. I am reminded that life, all life from fruit flys to blue whales, from bacteria to giant redwoods; it sustains only as long as conditions strike that happy balance. Life requires light and water and climate that meets our needs. The chemistry of that narrow, thin little layer of air and water that supports all life is not guaranteed. Change is the nature of nature. How long can you hold your breath? 
I am shutting this down now with a shoutout for Carl Sagan’s quote about The Little Blue Dot. I recommend it. You caN GOOGLE it. 

REALITY CHECK

  When my dad was just about my age now he told me that he hated being old. He had been living alone for five or six years since my mom passed and he wasn’t handling that well. I was living far away which compounded things. His friends were aging out and dying off and he wasn’t making any new ones. Grandchildren had grown up and moved on; not that they didn’t or don’t care but life has a way of overflowing all of the space available. It leaves little room for grandparents and he was lonely regardless. I couldn’t help with that but I took it as an omen, a cautionary reality-check; not unlike the reckless driver who passed me a few miles back and I catch up with them later, pulled over by the police and instinctively I think; Not good, don’t do that. So here I am, same age (85) but I don’t hate it. There are drawbacks but without the Yin-Yang and Karma factors I couldn’t appreciate good fortune when it treats me better than I deserve. 
This is a story that was born in my preteen years. Sleeping outside on a hot summer night I woke up to a bright light and a voice coming down from the treetops. It said when I was being born I was delivered to the wrong planet and they were here to rescue me, to take me home where I belong. Then my mother’s voice called from her bedroom window. She told me to stop with the noise and go to sleep. In the still that followed, both the bright light and the voice had disappeared. It felt so real I couldn’t let it go, begging the question that has never been satisfied. I dream dreams, maybe not every night but often, still I don’t remember any of them. The one in our front yard when I was 10, I still remember it clear as a bell. 
Not wanting to sound like a fool, still it’s is generally accepted that the subconscious mind (which is unavailable to the conscious one) can and does bridge that gap with thoughts and ideas (language) that we have no control over. A thought, out of the blue that just hits you between the ears; artists and writers in particular refer to this inspiring phenomenon as the ‘Muse’. If you treat it with denial (WTF) then what you see is what you get. I pay close attention when I get those little flashes of inspiration, afraid if I don’t it will give up on me and go away for good. I am patient but never closed to an insight that has otherwise eluded me. 
Getting back to the hot night in the front yard, I still chew on that unresolved question. Certainly, across my lifetime I harbor reservations about being a human being. Sometimes, everything in my experience tells me that I don’t belong. I know,I know, I’m stuck here and nothing foreseeable to remedy that. Still this life has always given me a path where I could both learn from failure and try again, and again. I should be grateful and I am but it is in our nature to want more and better than what we have even when it comes at the expense of unfortunate others who are trapped in a working underclass. Here in the U.S.SA. we have the best government money can buy, where Liberty is confused with License and you get just as much Justice as you can afford. I certainly am grateful. If not for White-Male privilege it is extremely unlikely I would have ever seen the inside of a university library.  
I made it my life’s work to know biology and evolution, to realize the power of applied math and data but in my culture it’s not something you want to take seriously. Our leadership is content to popularize conspiracy theories, cook the books and blame each other for the shortfall. This could unfold as a rant against political parties and religious deities but they have joined at the hip and you can’t tell where one stops and the other begins. 
If I have a bona fide hero it would be Astronomer Carl Sagan, 1934 - 1996. He understood the frailty of life on this planet and the vast expanse of a universe that doesn’t care at all if we flourish for thousands of years in hunter-gatherer clans or perish in a civilized attempt to be the temporary Lords of an ordinary planet. For as long as I am remembered by anyone, for any reason, I don’t want to be lumped together with egomaniac narcissists  who can’t see beyond the next election cycle, who profit from building walls to keep their base happy as they worship their own image in the mirror. 

WHOOP-DE-DOO

  I’ve been reminded that it’s been a long time since my last journal entry and ‘Stones’ post. The last few months have been a busy time but ‘Busy’ comes in different packages. Some leave you smiling but others are no fun at all. Movie Star Betty Davis (1908-1989) gets credit for this ubiquitous observation; “Old age ain’t for sissies.” Leon Trotsky (Russian Revolutionary) shared a similar revelation; “Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man.” He had big plans and plenty of time but surprise-surprise; he woke up one day too old to keep up. The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. 
I’m old but I saw it coming. I can’t speak for others but the future is now and I don’t want to squander it on making plans. One’s days are numbered and thankfully that number is unknown. It makes the present all the more important. So I’m writing again but too much time on the computer is a stressor and I need to be moving my feet. 
Max Ehrmann was an American writer, poet and philosopher from the first half of the last century. He is best known for a poem he wrote in the late 20’s titled ‘Desiderata’. It’s an easy read, I recommend it. Toward the end he advises, “Be gentle with yourself.” I’ve learned to do that without a prompt but it’s also a good example to set for others. In so-many words he assures us that the universe is unfolding exactly as it should and to be at peace with God, however you perceive it. As I age I find some of my peers relating to Ehrmann’s insight. I don’t formalize prayer as I don’t recognize a traditional God but I think Ehrmann’s poem makes righteous meaning any time, under any set of circumstance. 
My granddaughter got married day before yesterday; it was planned to perfection. The venue was small but there were enough chairs to seat everyone. Long white dress with a train, flowers in her hair. I know enough of the backstory to appreciate how weddings can soften old grudges, bitter enemies agree to share the moment. What started out as a choreographed ritual transitioned through a cascade of photographs, an awesome dinner then toasts and speeches and concluded much later, the bride dancing with all of the significant men in her life. When I left the dance floor was crowded, the music loud and my side of the family carrying on with strangers as if they were new-best friends. I even danced with my own daughter (the bride’s aunt) did some turns dips and a whoop-de-doo with no consequence. 
So here it is the end of May, Labor Day weekend. Out-of-towners heading home, locals gearing up for a short work week. On their way to New Orleans the honeymooners are making memories. Weddings are a highpoint for good will, high hopes and new beginnings. The collective euphoria won’t last long and gravity will reassert its rule. From my perspective I would default back to ‘Desiderata’ and a truism that I have come to trust; “Life is short: eat dessert first.”

THEREFORE I AM

George Burns is credited with the line, “Age, it’s just a number.” but someone else said it first. The “. . . just a number.” thing is Word-play; it makes us feel clever but the calendar doesn’t lie and it is more than just a number no matter what they say. What Burns did say was, “You can’t help getting older but you don’t have to get old.” Burns word-play was about the way one sees themself and how being relevant supersedes age. I am 85.586301 years old today. Tomorrow I’ll be 85.590141 years and those are just numbers. I used to have a schedule and you don’t want to be late for an appointment or a duty but as I’ve grown older I have more time to think about things than I have things to do. If it had been just me a career as a full time student would have been awesome but it wouldn’t pay the bills. But now I can study history, language, human behavior and how the brain works. It’s easy with the internet. I can take notes and then study my notes, review and connect the dots. I can study the scholars who write the books and judge for myself if they are pretenders who distort a kernel of truth to promote what they want me to believe or the real deal scholars who follow the crumbs wherever they go and my heroes are real deals. When I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep I can review my notes, study again. Kids are supposed to experience the joy of discovery between the 4th and 7th grade but I was preoccupied. The joy of discovery, what a profound idea. I didn’t have to be told but then I was a 25 year-old kid in Biology 101, couldn’t help myself and I’m still hooked on learning and a high probability of knowing and I want to know. 
I take after René Descartes or at least I like to think I do. I think therefore I am and that is a good start. So I study, read and reread before I take notes then reread my notes. It’s like juggling and I need to keep at least 3 ideas in the air or I forget. In graduate school I wrestled with Statistics 401 but it left me with a healthy respect for standard deviations and numbers with lots of zeroes on either side of the decimal point. If I don’t keep working with them it’s easy to lose the handle. How do I get my head around a trillion raindrops from a single cloud or a membrane 0.001 mm thick?  
        In the USA there are about 6.5 million people age 85 or older which works out to about 1.75% of the total population. Staying relevant is a lot like pushing a rock up the hill since most of my century-mates don’t expect much from me. Many if not most of these 85+ seniors are tucked away, warehoused in facilities for those who are aging out. I have not been warehoused yet and I don’t really like the idea but maybe it’s the price we pay for living a long life. 
How can I know anything for sure; maybe it’s too much to ask but given the variables we can calculate probability down to a simple ratio, either yes or no and I can burn as many zeroes as it takes. I have a wonderful education over roughly 31,237 days of both formal schooling and life-experience so in the spirit of René Descartes, when the probability of something happening turns out to be either 0.99:1 or 0.009:1 then I can know with some confidence whether or not to hold my breath.
But if I’ve learned anything it is that people respond to (passion) strong feelings long before they resort to reason and logic. I fall into that same trap and I suffer the consequence. But I know better. It may not keep me from taking the bait but if I keep repeating thee same life-lesson, eventually I default to reason. It means I have to change the way I feel about the way I feel. 
If I want to boil this life down to a few absolutes I would begin with the Golden Rule. Every known religion on the planet has a premiss that equates to the Golden Rule which tells me that religion is not going to save us. Religion simply lumps us into groups who discriminate between who we reward and who we punish and it uses that leverage to manipulate its own followers. Government is a mirror reflection of religion that preaches, ‘To the victors go the spoils’ in lieu of the Golden Rule.  

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE TRUE

      Looking back through old posts for something else I stumbled across this one from January, '23. It is so much better than anything I could put together today I am recycling it. I still wonder what Andy would say. 

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE TRUE

This blog was born in August of 2012 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Since then its following has remained a sparse few folks who either Googled their way here by mistake or already knew me and for one reason or another kept coming back. Thanks! I appreciate their dropping in. It keeps me working on vocabulary, being concise which is not easy by the way, and knowing when it’s alright to just throw words at the page from a meandering stream of consciousness. 

I like to identify with Andy Rooney, a writer featured on the CBS program, 60 Minutes. He passed away over a decade ago at 92 but when I feel writer’s block and ideas stay stuck down in a neural wrinkle I still default to, ‘What would Andy Rooney say.’ He took ideas from the Common Sense pool and turned them upside down which, sooner or later offended nearly everyone. In his own, self-assuming style he insulted or provoked people of every color and ethnicity, every LGBT, every belief. The network pulled him off the air but their audience switched to another channel until they reinstated Andy, which they always did. In hindsight, what separated Andy from Bill O’Reilly and Bill Maher was that the pundits spoke from their own self appointed authority, “Believe me, I know!” but Andy kept asking, “How does this work?” Andy wasn’t selling a canned belief system or an unholy scheme, he was sharing his search for possibility and meaning. When his readers swamped him with complaints he responded with; “When so many of your friends disagree with you so strongly it must be time to rethink your own position.” His disclaimers and apologies were pointed and contrite. When he redefined his thinking and apologized it was convincing, not (Bill Maher or Bill O’Reilly) propaganda and double talk that changed the subject without addressing the issue. 

Andy Rooney surfaced at the peak of white male privilege and that explains a lot. It was a cultural constant, like the air we breathe and our mother’s embrace. I came along twenty years later and to some extent we stumbled over that same self serving prejudice and we both asked similar questions like, “What is wrong here?” Finding fault within one’s own culture and peer group is difficult. Challenging it in public is asking for a rebuke. That’s enough reason for me to liked Andy. On his best day he reasoned that he could be wrong, that he was often wrong and that occupying a credible balance was preferable to the comfort of partisan privilege. 

My reading list now includes scholars like Yuval Harari (Sapiens) and Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind). I never needed convincing but human’s evolutionary history and behavior patterns are consistent with the animal kingdom. We are animals. We are more like pelicans, whales and monkeys than we are different. Our claim to fame (that we cannot take credit for) is a weird shaped mouth and larynx that can shape sounds to make consonant and vowels, to make syllables and words. Add to that the tools in our tool box. We have imagination and we can tell stories. With Story humans can self identify in time and space, reflect on the past and ponder what comes next. Humans have been begging the same insightful questions all along; where did we come from, how did we get here and why? 

Paleolithic people were smart as can be but they didn’t know their own backstory (evolution) and their most scientific tool was the naked eye. So they made up Stories that they could understand. It had to make sense of a complicated, dangerous world. We call those primitive stories, ‘Myth’. In that complicated, dangerous world we required knowledge and a skill set for survival, replication and reproduction; to not go extinct. From mountains to seashore, culture to culture, different groups of people did survive and reproduce sufficiently. We are the flesh & blood evidence. What Harari points out is: People don’t all share the same myth, never have. But if they work it doesn’t matter. 

Harari has opened Pandora’s box. Take every mythical belief and the behaviors they provoke, put it together with how those groups conform and then consider what they think it means. That would be their collective Story. All of it: what you experience, how it affects individuals, the clan or tribe over the short term and/or the long haul, how people connect Cause and Effect relationships, what they reject and what they believe, it is their Story. Remember that one tribe’s Story could be very different than another tribe’s Story. The environment affects everything in the human saga; climate, availability of food and water, dangerous predators, competing with other tribes. Altogether we inherit a well framed Story that has taken, (who knows how many) generations to formalize into myth, your Story (history, beliefs & behavior) doesn’t have to be true. It just has to work (replicate, reproduce, carve its own niche in the environment and sustain the species.) 

Speaking for myself, Harari’s ‘It Only Has To Work’ observation is a profound revelation. I am not selling his book or professing my discipleship but the door has opened and the tide has turned in my thinking. E.O.Wilson (R.I.P.) condensed the idea down into a simple sentence: “The trouble with Homo sapiens is that we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.” So said, I want to follow up on that idea as I move on into 2023. I can refer to this January 7, 2023 post and move on with the premiss, It doesn’t have to be true. It only has to work. 

FOR A FEW MINUTES

  I just came in from shoveling snow but I’ll go back out to finish the work in a while. Trucks from the city have been around, I can hear one now with its blade scraping against the blacktop. My educated guess is that we received about 3” of light, fluffy stuff that is easy to shovel. I know better than to over-do so use my shovel like a snow plow blade, push stuff downslope and to he side so I am mostly pushing down hill with little little bending over and no heavy lifting. 
Accuweather is a weather forecasting service that has been around for at least thirty years. I check their 10 day forecast, understanding how difficult it is to predict high and low temps that far ahead. Two weeks ago all of the forecasters were telling us the winter blast wasn’t over, that February was going to bring more snow and the most bitter bitter lows we’ve seen in years. I checked on the 10th for this week and the forecast for today’s low was -2. When I got up at 7:00 the temp was -2. It has gone up to 4 degrees and the high is supposed to get up to 9. I’ll try to keep up with it but I’m not betting against Accuweather. 
I am finishing my second mug of coffee and put away several cookies (several for me is 6 or 8). I’ll go sit down and close my eyes for a few minutes, set alarm on my cell phone. (few for me is 15, give or take.) Then I’ll layer up and go outside. Even in the cold that light, fluffy snow will start to settle and the easy part will become not so easy. But all that is left is the stuff on the low end, the steepest part of the drive. My glasses will fog up when I come back in so I can’t see a thing. But I’ll close my eyes again for a few minutes and they will be good to go. I expect to go the rest of the day inside. Accuweather is predicting a small dusting of snow and a low temp here tonight of -9 degrees. I can hear the snowplow again, scraping along the curbs to get as much snow back into my drive as possible but that’s alright. They do a good job and have a lot of it done before I get out of bed. 

IF I WERE YOUNGER

  A guest minister conducted our service this morning. As denominations go his is about as liberal as Christians get. There are two Churches of Christ, one that is extremely conservative and evangelical. Their faith is rooted in the conviction that the bible is not only divinely inspired but absolutely true, word for word, every word. The other Church of Christ has a prefix to make sure they don’t get confused; The United Church of Christ (UCC). In Grand Rapids, Michigan before I retired in 2001 I was a member at Saint John’s UUC. There were no hard-fast rules on what was required of members but our pastor’s degree was in philosophy and his message was always about redemption, not salvation. He was very familiar with Joseph Campbell’s views on God. He said that God is a metaphor for a mystery that is beyond human comprehension (or) in my translation, we attribute to God (the metaphor) what we cannot understand. That’s what made the church attractive in the first place. 
Anyway, out guest minister preached on how to be joyful in the act of defiance. In the audience you would have to have been in a coma for the past four months to not know what he was talking about. In our spiritual community the principles of justice, fair play, equity, democratic process and environmental responsibility are at the core of our religion which basically puts the White House and Congress at odds with everything we hold dear. 
We were put on notice that others like us would be challenged soon to put up or shut up. Some of us will likely be arrested at protests, peaceful or otherwise but that should be expected when demagogues, authoritarian bigots and despots don’t have to answer to anyone. That’s not me having a tantrum, that’s the Christian minister who is challenging a bunch of progressive activists who have just been kicked to the curb. When I vent my disappointment I remember how old I am. Not one to throw stones or provoke authority figures I will be left to call and write my elected officials. My guess is that every elected partisan, either side has an AI program that reads and tallies how many (for & against) contacts come through their office but the only ones who get a legitimate response will be those who donate to their re-election campaigns. I could go sit outside their office with a placard but I’d probably need an expensive permit but there you go, off to jail. I’m too old to immigrate. Nobody wants me living off American retirement and draining their national health resources 
When this kind of sh*t happens (Project 2025) I default to my favorite make-believe. When my great-great-great grandparents immigrated to Nova Scotia in the 1880’s they stayed a while and ended up in Indiana. I fault them for robbing me of my Canadian roots. But then my parents would have never met and I would be like every other non-person whose parents never met and they were never conceived. So if I blame anyone it will have to be my mom and dad. They stayed in the USA during the Great Depression, got support from their families and I turned 2 just a few months before Pearl Harbor. 
My experience (journey) in Canada may be thin but it is real. Two months in Nova Scotia in 2001, a month in British Columbia in 2010, Nova Scotia again another four months in 2012, and a long drive up and down the AlCan highway in 2015: I know enough to know I love the culture and I made friends there who still ask when I’m coming back. I asked one friend (a technical writer & musician) what it’s like living next to America. She replied without a second thought; “A lot like living next door to the Simpsons” (Homer, Marge, Bart & Lisa). 
When I give it serious thought the thought always takes thee same path. All things being equal I would have been a much better Canadian than I am an American. I have a friend (Unitarian-Universalist minister) In Halifax who spent most of his professional career (an engineer) in Atlanta, Georgia, retired and came home to Nova Scotia and became a minister. He thinks the big difference between us is that the USA gained independence through a bloody revolution (A zero sum game). While it took longer in Canada the process came out of negotiation and a (Win-Win) solution. One culture is still looking for a fight while the other is willing to compromise for the greater good. I don’t think Norm’s assessment is all there is but I think his view makes a strong case and is easily defended.
If I were younger immigration to Canada would be a worthy option. Back in the 70’s when Americans were escaping to Canada to avoid Nixon’s unwinnable war in Vietnam I was starting a career with a Master’s degree and a young family. We could have made that leap with relative ease. As I think of it now there is an urge to apologize to my middle age kids for robbing them of their Canadian roots. I doubt they would feel the same, who knows? The road not traveled is not for us to know and I’m not going to blame my parents after all. But when authoritarian bigots go boldly about robbing me of my American roots I feel a strong pull to Halifax and a culture that works faithfully to create Win-Win solutions. For the record, I would think long and hard if the opportunity to migrate north was made real. I could live in Saint Stephen, New Brunswick, just across the bridge from Calais, Maine, a stone’s throw in distance but far enough to be under the red maple leaf. Wishful thinking. Talk’s cheap when the possibility is so remote.