The instinctual drive for self preservation translates twistedly into a global capitalist marketplace. The self-preservation instinct originated for self, then family, then community. So the stretch to include a municipality, nation, or even a global community is beyond most people for most of their lives. They amass to support their security drives, and effectively horde, and when the currency of security in industrialized nations is money, the unchecked desire for "more for me and mine" will, left unmodulated by systemic checks, lead to the gross inequity we see in the world today, particularly in the United States.
For a good broad description of the system and its effects, Inequality for All, the documentary featuring Robert Reich does a great job. It doesn't judge the status quo, per se, in my opinion, but someone on the "winning" side could certainly find plenty of the description incriminating, and become knee-jerkingly defensive.
The bigger question to me is not so much how the monetary policy in America needs to change (the default focus of our efforts), but rather how do we raise children to understand the underlying psycho-physiological complex that leads to the disproportionate accumulation of wealth. With the global distribution system, the capability to mobilize thousands in manufacturing, the instantaneous communication with hundreds of millions allows certain phenomena to gather billions of dollars in very little time and multinational conglomerates and interests to amass hundreds of billions in revenue in a few years. A derivative corruption of this industrial complex is the lucrative and opportunistic management of the financial side of these global markets where people can profit to an obscene extreme while providing no real input into the system (talking specifically about robot traders but more loosely about clever machinations of the larger financial industry that works outside actual venture investments and normal debt and basic banking functions). If a biological system becomes overpopulated, natural culling occurs through starvation, or poisoning by waste. When it happens in a bodily tissue, it's called a cancer and we die or treat it through excision, chemical or radiation therapy. When a person sees acute poverty, most through no fault of the impoverished, how can they turn a blind eye? Someone just making it (enough to own a modest house, adequate transportation, enough food, some entertainment and travel, bills get paid) but with no real luxury, might be understood if they are not profuse in helping those hard on their luck from improving their lot. But it makes a body wonder, doesn't it, the mindset that believes their body of work in a year justifies the compensation that would sustain 10 or 20 families. Yes, a person who has invested a great deal in educating themselves, who has worked hard to reach a level of competence that makes their service extra valuable to their clients/customers/employers deserves a handsome reward, but even so, where does the sense of "this is fair compensation" come in?
I wonder if it's getting locked into this idea that the goal is to make as much money as we can after growing up with that in mind and living it with the whole fiber of one's being throughout the early career periods make it almost impossible to think outside that box, even after every reasonable level of "financial success" has been surpassed. How is it that such intelligent people don't see their place in the larger system, where it is clear that the strength of our country and the continued stability that supports more and more people becoming more than comfortable hinges on the strength of the middle class, and that demands higher wages for more people. There are a hundred million people out there working pretty damn hard in their jobs who are making 10 or 100 or 300 times less than the few million people at the top of the hierarchy. Flattening that compensation curve would be way more effective than raising taxes. When the money has to work its way through a huge and inefficient government bureaucracy to make it's way back out the other end in the form of programs to help so many more poor than there would be if wages were more balanced in the first place is an incredible waste of humanity. This is one area where the market fails. What would it take for the leaders to break through their current thinking (I have to make more money) to voluntarily raise the wages of the lower paid workers and reduce their own? Would an appeal by some rich thought leaders change things? Is there ANYTHING that would make a real difference short of some painful revolution?
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
When God Invites You In
I read an inspiring little blog entry by my sister on her daughter's Caring Bridge page about God's Fingerprints.
The gold nugget of her story was that she had a deep sense that "God's got this." That this is in HIS hands.
Now, from the perspective of a Believer, the belief is that "God's got this" (GGT) in ALL things, ALL the time, and someone who believes that should theoretically have that deep sense of everything being grace, and the plan, bigger than ourselves, ultimately out of our hands, and God is good. But they don't. So much for faith.
Why are some times special? Why does God "invite us in" to his garden just sometimes to feel deep in our soul the truth what we try to believe in all the time? And is there anything I can do to get on the list? And how can I stay there (even as I go about the daily routine of my life)?
I know from reading, from testimony, and from personal experience, that there are people who have a lifetime free pass to that sense of peace and contentment of abiding in "God's got this." And you can follow any of (a hundred?) disciplines to do it, but they all amount to a few singular ways.
The gold nugget of her story was that she had a deep sense that "God's got this." That this is in HIS hands.
Now, from the perspective of a Believer, the belief is that "God's got this" (GGT) in ALL things, ALL the time, and someone who believes that should theoretically have that deep sense of everything being grace, and the plan, bigger than ourselves, ultimately out of our hands, and God is good. But they don't. So much for faith.
Why are some times special? Why does God "invite us in" to his garden just sometimes to feel deep in our soul the truth what we try to believe in all the time? And is there anything I can do to get on the list? And how can I stay there (even as I go about the daily routine of my life)?
I know from reading, from testimony, and from personal experience, that there are people who have a lifetime free pass to that sense of peace and contentment of abiding in "God's got this." And you can follow any of (a hundred?) disciplines to do it, but they all amount to a few singular ways.
- Regular and frequent Meditation, Meditative Prayer. Not the type of prayer where you try to get something, but the type where you still your mind and allow that quiet voice inside to learn to communicate to the part of you that lives in the regular world.
- Deep thought about the nature of the universe and our place in it. I'm never surprised anymore when people of the most fundamental science (physics, evolutionary biology, cognitive and brain science) reach the edge of the known/knowable, and still wonder, and get a little bit loopy about some sort of divinity. Maybe not the exact sense that stems from someone reaching that point from the religious side of things which anthropomorphizes God, but similar enough that it might be mistaken in the emotional centers of the brain. Years of thinking of ourselves as deeply part of the universe, and one with it is eventually going to have a likewise deep impact.
- Earthshaking events that occur when the mind happens to be in some particular state of openness. The event creates a rift that allows or propels or forces the truth of existence into the protected areas of our psyche. Something that induces the deep thoughts about the nature of life (see above), and results, often quite suddenly, in arriving at that same place. "All is good, GGT."
Having a "lifetime pass" doesn't mean that there is an awareness every moment of GGT, but the path to get there is available anytime it's needed, and the door is always open, should they want to spend a little time there for whatever reason. As life takes us through its valleys of darkness and across its arid deserts, it can sometimes take a few moments to find our way back, but with enough time abiding there, it's like you can take a wardrobe of it with you, and step inside no matter where you are. The physical space of a garden metaphor breaks down a little here, because, of course, the whole place exists always inside us all the time (yes, Wizard of Oz is a classic for a reason), but the mental familiarity with the path down into that part of ourselves is what makes it easily accessible.
I'm glad my little sister got to spend a time there when her need was great.
Monday, October 7, 2013
Pinky Time
It fleets by and leaves, the pink or golden sky
Those early evenings, still warm from earlier sun
It comes through throwing out candy as it goes by
And soon, even the last tinge of flavor is a memory
It'll be back, are you going to be around
To take a look and drink up its gift --
This rounds on him.
And so it is with everything.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
News -- You Can Turn It Off A Lot and Get Back to Your Job
If you're over 30 and if you've been reading and listening and watching the news for the last couple decades, you will have seen a steady stream of more of the same. The Republicans are being fussy with the budget, a country is being overthrown by a revolution, countries are considering boycotting a major world sporting event, terrorists have blown up something with a bomb, shooters have shot up a bunch of people, major weather and catastrophic natural events are wreaking havoc on areas of the globe, buildings are collapsing, workers are striking. New foods are found healthy and others are deemed unhealthy, diseases are disappearing and others emerging as epidemics, aide workers are helping to turn around third world countries, and medical advances are helping to treat diseases that before were death sentences, infant mortality is down, stress and sleep are found to be important to better or worse health. . .
Clearly I could continue ad naseum. The world news cycle is predictable after enough time. Same with local news stories: a police chase ends in a shooting, a murder-suicide is discovered in a condominium, children and dogs are left in a car and die, the New Year's Day baby is born, a tussle about religious symbols somewhere in the public arena ensues, the price of gas goes up and down, weather happens, the local sports team triumphs and falls, the mayor goes up against city hall,
It's the daily drone that you can do without. It's nice to be informed so you can vote and have opinions but reading magazines, in-dept analysis, books, and other media that avoids the fabricated hype is better than wasting your time daily over-newsing oneself. Getting the weather and local events when you need them from the internet (pulling rather than yielding to the push), and catching one round-up news show every few days, and following up on the interesting topics from your favorite sources is better than clicking on the 6:30 TV News everyday. Flipping on the news as you change clothes or do the dishes? No problem. But come ON! It's the same news as yesterday, yesteryear, and when you were a teenager. Time to move on.
Sitcoms, talk shows, video games, etc. -- same thing. After a couple decades (times will vary by the boredom toleration threshold of our individual intelligences), the stream of infotainment can be stemmed and ones attention and life-force can be applied to more novel and productive endeavors. Live, as it were.
Clearly I could continue ad naseum. The world news cycle is predictable after enough time. Same with local news stories: a police chase ends in a shooting, a murder-suicide is discovered in a condominium, children and dogs are left in a car and die, the New Year's Day baby is born, a tussle about religious symbols somewhere in the public arena ensues, the price of gas goes up and down, weather happens, the local sports team triumphs and falls, the mayor goes up against city hall,
It's the daily drone that you can do without. It's nice to be informed so you can vote and have opinions but reading magazines, in-dept analysis, books, and other media that avoids the fabricated hype is better than wasting your time daily over-newsing oneself. Getting the weather and local events when you need them from the internet (pulling rather than yielding to the push), and catching one round-up news show every few days, and following up on the interesting topics from your favorite sources is better than clicking on the 6:30 TV News everyday. Flipping on the news as you change clothes or do the dishes? No problem. But come ON! It's the same news as yesterday, yesteryear, and when you were a teenager. Time to move on.
Sitcoms, talk shows, video games, etc. -- same thing. After a couple decades (times will vary by the boredom toleration threshold of our individual intelligences), the stream of infotainment can be stemmed and ones attention and life-force can be applied to more novel and productive endeavors. Live, as it were.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Syria and the Common American
As an exceptional country, i.e. as the worlds premier super power, one who has the financial and military support to act with its own volition, we are obligated to choose.
1. The issue is like any major geopolitical issue: super complex, existing in the chaotic and unpredictable environment of a multi-faceted connected globe. We have personal, economic, treaty and organizational, governmental and other types of connections, all of which provide their own pressure on decisions. The consequences of actions cannot be forecast a year out, say nothing of what ultimately could result decades hence, so pretending to know what is the best course of action is folly.
2. As an exceptional nation, what ARE our guiding principles? What's right? What's in it for US? Our global reputation, noting that the same decision labels us both true to our word (we act when we say we will) and an interventionist state, meddling in other's affairs? What do we do when those principles contradict each other?
As a regular American, trying to understand even the broad scope, immediate issues are time consuming. What evidence have I SEEN that tells me it was the government and not the rebels who used gas? How much do I trust the intelligence and government message versus what could be a ruse by the rebels to incite anti-(Syrian)government sentiment from America? What are the implications of different types of punitive actions? How do they jibe with my view of what I want for America? Again, I haven't even tried to predict the future eventualities of just one of those, when there are scores of different tacks we could take.
What's clear is there is no obvious rights or wrongs among the possible reasonable actions our nation could take. And how much muddier it gets when a person IS actually able to immerse themselves in the morass of historical president, regional history both ancient and recent, international law and convention, analysis if similar actions in many different scenarios that have played out over the last hundred years... Those simpletons who are holding their signs have almost as much "right" to their say as the Middle Eastern Policy Specialist within the governments of prominent states, professors of foreign policy at the world's premier universities, and the heads of state, themselves.
In the end, I go with the most underlying principal: I believe our country should act in the moment with our best knowledge, to be able to wake up the next day with no regrets, being able to say, "We did what we thought was best regardless of what anyone else thinks."
1. The issue is like any major geopolitical issue: super complex, existing in the chaotic and unpredictable environment of a multi-faceted connected globe. We have personal, economic, treaty and organizational, governmental and other types of connections, all of which provide their own pressure on decisions. The consequences of actions cannot be forecast a year out, say nothing of what ultimately could result decades hence, so pretending to know what is the best course of action is folly.
2. As an exceptional nation, what ARE our guiding principles? What's right? What's in it for US? Our global reputation, noting that the same decision labels us both true to our word (we act when we say we will) and an interventionist state, meddling in other's affairs? What do we do when those principles contradict each other?
As a regular American, trying to understand even the broad scope, immediate issues are time consuming. What evidence have I SEEN that tells me it was the government and not the rebels who used gas? How much do I trust the intelligence and government message versus what could be a ruse by the rebels to incite anti-(Syrian)government sentiment from America? What are the implications of different types of punitive actions? How do they jibe with my view of what I want for America? Again, I haven't even tried to predict the future eventualities of just one of those, when there are scores of different tacks we could take.
What's clear is there is no obvious rights or wrongs among the possible reasonable actions our nation could take. And how much muddier it gets when a person IS actually able to immerse themselves in the morass of historical president, regional history both ancient and recent, international law and convention, analysis if similar actions in many different scenarios that have played out over the last hundred years... Those simpletons who are holding their signs have almost as much "right" to their say as the Middle Eastern Policy Specialist within the governments of prominent states, professors of foreign policy at the world's premier universities, and the heads of state, themselves.
In the end, I go with the most underlying principal: I believe our country should act in the moment with our best knowledge, to be able to wake up the next day with no regrets, being able to say, "We did what we thought was best regardless of what anyone else thinks."
Friday, July 12, 2013
Filner
No way. The leader of a big city who is using his position to behave in a way that is universally understood to be reprehensible. At least with Clinton, no one accused him of coercion to get sex. It's bad enough when someone who is clearly bestowed a position of great power and trust acts in a juvenile manner, with lewd comments or sexual innuendo. If you can't use the Mayor as a role model, who then? But to use the position of authority for personal gain of any kind (including financial or sexual favors) needs to be intolerable. Corruption is a blight capable of bringing down a government. Everywhere possible, it needs to be met with unequivocal resolve: Not in my (community, city, state, country)! No second chance for Filner. He blew his big chance to be trusted. It wasn't just a single or isolated incident. It's who he is.
Travon
I have a hard time with someone aggressively following and approaching someone, armed, inciting a fight, starting to get beat, shooting and killing their target, and then calling self-defense or "stand-your-ground." That's neither in the spirit of self defense or stand your ground in my opinion. Zimmerman was clearly the original perpetrator, harassing a person who didn't deserve it.
There's no way he can be justifiably exonerated. He may not be guilty of pre-mediated murder. (He may, but I don't know of any such evidence aside from going out armed, looking to get in a tangle.) But he's guilty of being an asshole, starting a fight, and killing someone as a result of his actions.
There's no way he can be justifiably exonerated. He may not be guilty of pre-mediated murder. (He may, but I don't know of any such evidence aside from going out armed, looking to get in a tangle.) But he's guilty of being an asshole, starting a fight, and killing someone as a result of his actions.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
A Poem by my daughter
I snub my noise at your labor of love, spit it out onto your clean floor
I want to throw dirt on you, rub my grimy hands on your freshly washed linen.
I want to rend and rip and tear its head off.
I want to throw it on the ground and smash it with my foot
I want to squish it under my thumb and grind its guts into the concrete.
I want to smear its beauty with crimson and black and blue.
I want to pinch his skin from his body and bite off his ear.
I want to rage and curse and smash my fist into your face.
I want to twist it until it severs, dig my nails into your eyes and scratch your cheeks until they bleed.
I want to grab you by the hair and pull with all my strength.
I want you to suffer the deepest horror life can muster.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Be Excellent
It's something I've not always done. But keeping in mind that whatever I am about today, let me get it right. Pull the string. Turn all the stones. Exhaust the sources. Keep moving until it clicks. Go the whole nine yards.
So now, the centers of my life are my little family and the next stage of my career, which is slowly defining itself. Everything else I can loll about, pick and choose where my diversions lie, a little piano here, some Japanese there, keeping my brain active and filling up with interesting bits of this universe, letting some of it go... There's enough time in the day, but not enough time for everything.
So now, the centers of my life are my little family and the next stage of my career, which is slowly defining itself. Everything else I can loll about, pick and choose where my diversions lie, a little piano here, some Japanese there, keeping my brain active and filling up with interesting bits of this universe, letting some of it go... There's enough time in the day, but not enough time for everything.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
American Military Heroes and Criminals
I was moved to tears by Jessica Buchanan's 60 Minutes interview when she described her rescue by Seal Team 6. There are true heroes in the American Armed Services. I am embarrassed and disgusted when I hear the widespread reports of American military men assaulting women, including both other service members and civilians. With one and a half million service members, it's unrealistic to think we could eliminate all cases of rape and sexual assault, but according to the latest assessments, it's way too pervasive and a serious compromise of operational readiness.
It needs to be the attitude of America's fighting force to not let our desire to be a global force for good be sullied. Overall, if every proud rescue we make is counteracted by ruining a life of one of our servicemembers through a rape or sexual assault, we are a net liability to our country. Dammit, leaders, get this right. Use the same mission mentality we have when we're going to neutralize the enemy to neutralize the internal enemy. No equivocating. No negotiating with anyone who would perpetrate harm on any one of our fighting force.
How would we react if an enemy combatant were to infiltrate our military and rape our female members? We would route those bastards out and pillory them. Same thing; let's do it.
It needs to be the attitude of America's fighting force to not let our desire to be a global force for good be sullied. Overall, if every proud rescue we make is counteracted by ruining a life of one of our servicemembers through a rape or sexual assault, we are a net liability to our country. Dammit, leaders, get this right. Use the same mission mentality we have when we're going to neutralize the enemy to neutralize the internal enemy. No equivocating. No negotiating with anyone who would perpetrate harm on any one of our fighting force.
How would we react if an enemy combatant were to infiltrate our military and rape our female members? We would route those bastards out and pillory them. Same thing; let's do it.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Badges: Becoming Expert
When I fist started flying, keeping track of the overwhelming amounts of information about the flight condition of the airplane and the greater environment was hard. Without an instructor pilot and/or plenty of time in the simulator, a new pilot will crash. Period.
After a thousand hours flying, a person gets pretty good at knowing what's going on in the cockpit, outside the cockpit, on the radio, in the airspace, and in the battle space. What used to take intense concentration to interpret and understand eventually becomes matter of course and instinctive -- a quick glance at the 10 or 15 gauges fits into a well-known pattern, and is instantly registered. Anything out of the ordinary stands out like the a Coco-Puff in your Cheerios.
You always read about how chess masters experience a similar faculty. They can glance at a board, read strengths and weaknesses of each side, and come up with a few quality options on where to go next.
I've been immersed in leadership and management theory, strategic thinking and planning, educational theory and the real-time operation of all of that for many years, with the constant intention to understand, learn and explore. When I see a clear pattern of something emerging, it's not a mystery. The influences, personalities, and potential solutions are loud in my head. Watching others remain oblivious to problems that are so apparent is hard. When they can't see the problems, how can they see the solution?
After a thousand hours flying, a person gets pretty good at knowing what's going on in the cockpit, outside the cockpit, on the radio, in the airspace, and in the battle space. What used to take intense concentration to interpret and understand eventually becomes matter of course and instinctive -- a quick glance at the 10 or 15 gauges fits into a well-known pattern, and is instantly registered. Anything out of the ordinary stands out like the a Coco-Puff in your Cheerios.
You always read about how chess masters experience a similar faculty. They can glance at a board, read strengths and weaknesses of each side, and come up with a few quality options on where to go next.
I've been immersed in leadership and management theory, strategic thinking and planning, educational theory and the real-time operation of all of that for many years, with the constant intention to understand, learn and explore. When I see a clear pattern of something emerging, it's not a mystery. The influences, personalities, and potential solutions are loud in my head. Watching others remain oblivious to problems that are so apparent is hard. When they can't see the problems, how can they see the solution?
Monday, April 22, 2013
The "Busting Myths" Trend
You'll see articles in magazines and papers, books and webpages that are busting myths. But often, they're just stating the tenets of a program. When I read what they list as myths, and they are not commonly held misconceptions about their topic, it's pretty clear they're just trying to take pull in readers who think they know something about it and want to see if their myths are the same as everyone else. When I read the mythbuster articles, I expect to see my belief busted, but there it is, just confirming what I already thought. Disappointing. Deceptive. I don't fall for it anymore.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Adolescent Angst
I imagine my former students, mostly girls, but even the boys, stewing in their dorms or little apartments afflicted by some sort of depression or despair, and I think how far removed from reality their thoughts and feelings are as they swirl around in their overstimulated brains.
Their public comments show them in a state of self destructive loneliness and blind to the bright side of their world. And isn't that just the birthing ground for many a poem or song and the reason it resonates for so many.
It's hard to believe that a part of them doesn't see the big picture, that they have many friends who would be happy to share in their experience, that they will certainly have good times sometime in the not-distant future, that maybe they're just seeking some connection that could be more honestly returned if they would just ask for or act on instead of wallowing in self pity.
I imagine riding a roller coaster of emotion and their flawed reasoning believing the cause is some preconceived idea of where that emotion is supposed to come from, like "the world has abandoned them just when they needed a friend" or some unrequited sentiment for someone, or a hundred other things, when it might just as likely be some normal neurological reaction so some typical out-of-whack behavior. Before picking the first idea that pops into mind, why not look outside the roller coaster first. Am I getting too little sleep? Too much? Is my diet balanced and healthy? Am I getting enough exercise (daily active lifestyle, several timeweekly of vigorous exercise for thirty minutes or more)? Am I spending enough time in physical contact with my friends? Too much? Am I spending enough time being still and quiet, away from social media and my phone and my computer, letting my brain unwind and reach a state of peace? Is there some natural change of hormones due to a change of lifestyle, chemical birth control, or diet, exercise, or life situation? Any of those imbalances could be wreaking havoc with emotions, saving you the need to pretend your life is somehow tragic. The only tragedy might just be your unkind treatment of your precious brain. Sometimes just admitting you don't know what's causing the feelings, and that it could just be some fluctuation of neurological balance can take the depressing edge off the feeling. Sometimes getting the rest of your life is on track, that over which you can control (as listed above) can put everything back in order. Sometimes just writing down the PLAN to get things back in order can relieve some of the suffering the emotions are causing you.
It's not their fault they don't know how to deal with the vicissitudes in life. We're so focused on test scores, the prescribed path to success (good grades in school, college, get a "good" job), etc. that we don't have time to spend enough time on understanding this crazy organism we find ourselves inhabiting. I think we should add a year of high school to learn how this thing works.
Their public comments show them in a state of self destructive loneliness and blind to the bright side of their world. And isn't that just the birthing ground for many a poem or song and the reason it resonates for so many.
It's hard to believe that a part of them doesn't see the big picture, that they have many friends who would be happy to share in their experience, that they will certainly have good times sometime in the not-distant future, that maybe they're just seeking some connection that could be more honestly returned if they would just ask for or act on instead of wallowing in self pity.
I imagine riding a roller coaster of emotion and their flawed reasoning believing the cause is some preconceived idea of where that emotion is supposed to come from, like "the world has abandoned them just when they needed a friend" or some unrequited sentiment for someone, or a hundred other things, when it might just as likely be some normal neurological reaction so some typical out-of-whack behavior. Before picking the first idea that pops into mind, why not look outside the roller coaster first. Am I getting too little sleep? Too much? Is my diet balanced and healthy? Am I getting enough exercise (daily active lifestyle, several timeweekly of vigorous exercise for thirty minutes or more)? Am I spending enough time in physical contact with my friends? Too much? Am I spending enough time being still and quiet, away from social media and my phone and my computer, letting my brain unwind and reach a state of peace? Is there some natural change of hormones due to a change of lifestyle, chemical birth control, or diet, exercise, or life situation? Any of those imbalances could be wreaking havoc with emotions, saving you the need to pretend your life is somehow tragic. The only tragedy might just be your unkind treatment of your precious brain. Sometimes just admitting you don't know what's causing the feelings, and that it could just be some fluctuation of neurological balance can take the depressing edge off the feeling. Sometimes getting the rest of your life is on track, that over which you can control (as listed above) can put everything back in order. Sometimes just writing down the PLAN to get things back in order can relieve some of the suffering the emotions are causing you.
It's not their fault they don't know how to deal with the vicissitudes in life. We're so focused on test scores, the prescribed path to success (good grades in school, college, get a "good" job), etc. that we don't have time to spend enough time on understanding this crazy organism we find ourselves inhabiting. I think we should add a year of high school to learn how this thing works.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Inertia and The American Way
We're 330-odd million strong here in the US. There are a handful of major changes we all know our country needs to put into a sustainable* state of affairs. Permit me to brainstorm a little...
1. Switch to a human healthy and Earth friendly average diet. Taking on the aggregate, we need to eat much less overall, more natural foods, way less meat and sodium and sugar, more fiber, and a constant variety of seasonal and native vegetables.
2. Switch to a human healthy and Earth friendly energy scheme. Carbon release free and non-nuclear waste producing, non-toxic and resource frugal. Living closer to work, walking or riding a bike to work, or switching to electric motor-bikes. Recycle everything.
3. Doing more physical activity that accomplishes something (as opposed to turning our diet into heat at the local gym), and keeps us healthier. Gardening, commuting with your own energy, social or individual sports (as opposed to "working out" alone or
4. More involvement in civic and socially redeemable activities: Spending a little of your time contributing to the social welfare in a way you believe makes a positive impact on your fellow humans. Helping people find work, helping homeless find shelter options that supports their active engagement in the productive side of humanity, helping others in "teach a person to fish" sorts of ways.
5. Broaden our understanding of our world's amazing wonder. Broad and deep. Know a little about everything (science and nature and engineering, politics, language, anatomy and physiology, design and architecture and art, history and culture, psychology and medicine, philosophy, music, ad naseum). The more we know, the more we are able to act in ways that align with any sort of goals. Read, discuss, watch educational media, write (to process and share),
6. Improve healthcare: Get costs under control, reduce the overall need by making good life health decisions, tend to our mental health, educate children from a young age on all aspects of healthy living and maintaining our health.
7. Get a grip on the deeper mysteries. We're going to die, how do we live to honor that fact. Religion help many to get approximate our relation to the almighty universe.
8. Balance our lives with respect to our careers and the above endeavors.
9. Fix education to support the big picture, fund it adequately, and respect the sacred role it has in bringing our young into society as one of us.
10. Establish ways to reduce the wage disparity so more Americans can be share in the fruits of their labor, improving motivation and the economic strength of our country.
But our behavior patterns are formed early and once they're set, it's hard to change. "My dad did it, so it's good enough for me." Once we get used to something, change means work and effort, mental gymnastics. Taken in a generational context, most real changes of attitude take a generation or sometimes many generations to shift, even if the benefits are clear. Look at smoking, racism, taxes. One promising example is the rapid move in attitudes toward homosexuals. In one generation, there has been a meaningful and positive shift from negative to more positive.
Our past success as a nation has made us what we are. Although we have some of the worlds greatest innovators and ambitious humans of the planet, and we need these specialists to do what they do with total focus, but we need everybody to rise to their potential so we can accomplish as much as we can to create the country we want. Our innate inclination to protect our children from struggle works against us and makes us weaker. A healthy family eliminates much of the hardship, and that is a good thing insofar as "we made it." But for the future generations, when children grow up feeling entitled to the fruit of their ancestor's labor, their tendency to work their asses off to make it on their own and perpetuate the strength that led to their freedom from struggle. We have to find causes worth struggling for and work our asses off to make them work. It's a little bit of a contradiction and counter-intuitive. Like working out in a gym producing nothing, I don't want our children to struggle on academic issues or stress out from artificially induced senses of urgency. I would much rather they work through major problems in real life. Couldn't being out helping to build a levee connect them to their community, get them working hard and practicing their teamwork and leadership, and accomplish something, while allowing them to work hard and see the result of their efforts? Things like that.
But all of these major challenges facing us require a significant change of attitudes from one of "avoiding struggle" to "finding a problem worth overcoming and deciding to do it." One belittles and diminishes is as people; the other elevates our spirit and creates real self-esteem. At some point, we know when we're doing something real or playing a game. How do we switch from games to reality when the whole education system, the whole generation (with a small minority of exceptions) of parents and teachers and administrators were reared in that bubble?
*For the next couple hundred years, maybe? Longer than that and the mere scope of human population will wreak enough changes on the biosphere that our predictions and ideas today will almost certainly not be applicable to the sorts of engineering (social and otherwise) we'll have to do to sustain some sort of normal human population.
1. Switch to a human healthy and Earth friendly average diet. Taking on the aggregate, we need to eat much less overall, more natural foods, way less meat and sodium and sugar, more fiber, and a constant variety of seasonal and native vegetables.
2. Switch to a human healthy and Earth friendly energy scheme. Carbon release free and non-nuclear waste producing, non-toxic and resource frugal. Living closer to work, walking or riding a bike to work, or switching to electric motor-bikes. Recycle everything.
3. Doing more physical activity that accomplishes something (as opposed to turning our diet into heat at the local gym), and keeps us healthier. Gardening, commuting with your own energy, social or individual sports (as opposed to "working out" alone or
4. More involvement in civic and socially redeemable activities: Spending a little of your time contributing to the social welfare in a way you believe makes a positive impact on your fellow humans. Helping people find work, helping homeless find shelter options that supports their active engagement in the productive side of humanity, helping others in "teach a person to fish" sorts of ways.
5. Broaden our understanding of our world's amazing wonder. Broad and deep. Know a little about everything (science and nature and engineering, politics, language, anatomy and physiology, design and architecture and art, history and culture, psychology and medicine, philosophy, music, ad naseum). The more we know, the more we are able to act in ways that align with any sort of goals. Read, discuss, watch educational media, write (to process and share),
6. Improve healthcare: Get costs under control, reduce the overall need by making good life health decisions, tend to our mental health, educate children from a young age on all aspects of healthy living and maintaining our health.
7. Get a grip on the deeper mysteries. We're going to die, how do we live to honor that fact. Religion help many to get approximate our relation to the almighty universe.
8. Balance our lives with respect to our careers and the above endeavors.
9. Fix education to support the big picture, fund it adequately, and respect the sacred role it has in bringing our young into society as one of us.
10. Establish ways to reduce the wage disparity so more Americans can be share in the fruits of their labor, improving motivation and the economic strength of our country.
But our behavior patterns are formed early and once they're set, it's hard to change. "My dad did it, so it's good enough for me." Once we get used to something, change means work and effort, mental gymnastics. Taken in a generational context, most real changes of attitude take a generation or sometimes many generations to shift, even if the benefits are clear. Look at smoking, racism, taxes. One promising example is the rapid move in attitudes toward homosexuals. In one generation, there has been a meaningful and positive shift from negative to more positive.
Our past success as a nation has made us what we are. Although we have some of the worlds greatest innovators and ambitious humans of the planet, and we need these specialists to do what they do with total focus, but we need everybody to rise to their potential so we can accomplish as much as we can to create the country we want. Our innate inclination to protect our children from struggle works against us and makes us weaker. A healthy family eliminates much of the hardship, and that is a good thing insofar as "we made it." But for the future generations, when children grow up feeling entitled to the fruit of their ancestor's labor, their tendency to work their asses off to make it on their own and perpetuate the strength that led to their freedom from struggle. We have to find causes worth struggling for and work our asses off to make them work. It's a little bit of a contradiction and counter-intuitive. Like working out in a gym producing nothing, I don't want our children to struggle on academic issues or stress out from artificially induced senses of urgency. I would much rather they work through major problems in real life. Couldn't being out helping to build a levee connect them to their community, get them working hard and practicing their teamwork and leadership, and accomplish something, while allowing them to work hard and see the result of their efforts? Things like that.
But all of these major challenges facing us require a significant change of attitudes from one of "avoiding struggle" to "finding a problem worth overcoming and deciding to do it." One belittles and diminishes is as people; the other elevates our spirit and creates real self-esteem. At some point, we know when we're doing something real or playing a game. How do we switch from games to reality when the whole education system, the whole generation (with a small minority of exceptions) of parents and teachers and administrators were reared in that bubble?
*For the next couple hundred years, maybe? Longer than that and the mere scope of human population will wreak enough changes on the biosphere that our predictions and ideas today will almost certainly not be applicable to the sorts of engineering (social and otherwise) we'll have to do to sustain some sort of normal human population.
Friday, March 15, 2013
American Coffee
Bought some Dunkin' Donuts brand coffee beans. It's like regular coffee, only moreso. It's extremely average making it special and beloved, like Norman Rockwell and turkey for Thanksgiving. Excessive normalcy. Dunkin' Donuts is a coffee oxymoron. If I'm living in Paris one day and feeling nostalgic for America, I'll ask someone to send me some Dunkin' Donuts Coffee and make myself a medium size cup, let it cool to just above tepid, and drink it while listening to Alabama and Springsteen and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Pope Franky, Here's Wishing You Well. . .
I'm not a devout Catholic anymore, but I respect many parts of the institution, including their attempts to help the destitute, their attempt to create a global community for good, and providing a tradition that helps many feel connected to the divine. A visionary leader could ameliorate those parts which are short-sighted and not in keeping with the deeper teachings of Jesus. I'm not interested in the dogma and I'm not interested in tradition. To take an organization with as much inertia as the staid and billion-strong multinational members in a different direction, one that jibes with human nature without dumbing itself down to human nature's baser instincts is more than just difficult. It's a miracle waiting to happen, and we need a saintly and awesome leader.
But I sincerely hope for greatness. If he can take the religion away from it's clear failings (the leadership failure to effectively deal with priest child molestation, stance on gay rights and contraception in developing nations, et al.), he will allow the church to devote its attention where it belongs: modeling Jesus love. That's a good thing for the world given the far-reaching hands of the church.
But I sincerely hope for greatness. If he can take the religion away from it's clear failings (the leadership failure to effectively deal with priest child molestation, stance on gay rights and contraception in developing nations, et al.), he will allow the church to devote its attention where it belongs: modeling Jesus love. That's a good thing for the world given the far-reaching hands of the church.
Mortality
Riding to work this morning (RTWTM), I thought that archetypical thought, "What if I knew then what I know now..." and reviewed my old relationships and decisions from the standpoint of someone wisened by life's jarring lessons and a proclivity to look underneath to see how things work.
Having just spend a couple hours with one of my former students talking over her next stage in life (whether to stay near San Diego or move to NYC to pursue a graduate degree), and received a positive word about how that helped her clarify her thoughts, I put the two thoughts together.
It's not a new idea, but how could it be strengthened? In prehistoric times, the tribal elders were omnipresent lending their experience and wisdom to everyone all the time. Contrasting with our fragmented society where the old are shuttled off to their own enclaves to live out their autumn years together.
And think of all the young who would benefit from a few hours a month talking about their issues with some thoughtful oldster who has the time and inclination to leave a larger legacy than a pile of poopstained Depends(tm)
Why isn't someone putting these two groups together?
Having just spend a couple hours with one of my former students talking over her next stage in life (whether to stay near San Diego or move to NYC to pursue a graduate degree), and received a positive word about how that helped her clarify her thoughts, I put the two thoughts together.
It's not a new idea, but how could it be strengthened? In prehistoric times, the tribal elders were omnipresent lending their experience and wisdom to everyone all the time. Contrasting with our fragmented society where the old are shuttled off to their own enclaves to live out their autumn years together.
And think of all the young who would benefit from a few hours a month talking about their issues with some thoughtful oldster who has the time and inclination to leave a larger legacy than a pile of poopstained Depends(tm)
Why isn't someone putting these two groups together?
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Rhythm
Life like a heartbeat, pulse at full power, rest, do it again. Do it faster when you need to -- but still rest. A heart couldn't be working full blast all the time. That's called myocardio infarction and it's sick, a path to a swift death.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Violence
What are we afraid of? We have the understanding of human behavior to dismiss the overwhelming majority of violence in America, and we instead talk all around the issue.
No thinking person believes we can eliminate all harm caused by the truly crazy. Those who are hearing compelling sinister voices telling them to kill have been around maybe forever, and may have been burned as witches or banished to the wilds in more primitive cultures, and today they're often institutionalized.
Making weapons harder to acquire might have some nominal effect on the frequency of mass shootings. But if we're serious about severely curtailing repeat offenses, it will take a generation of effort returning to a healthier culture.
HEALTHIER CULTURE. That's a loaded term. All my experience and exposure to life has made it clear that the more we are separated from the fundamental realities of life, the more adrift we are and the more likely we are to become ill in nihilistic ways. People who are centered and grounded, by definition, do not "just want to watch the world burn."
We make life here in 21st Century America an artificially stressful endeavor, particularly in the teen years. With the best of intentions, of course. We want our children to grow up able to take on the world, so we put them into a factory-school and heap upon them the expectation that they conform and obey because we say so. This disconnects them from themselves and each other. It creates an ersatz compulsion without encouraging them to own their situation. They are disconnected from the natural community where we are all working together toward a comprehensible common goal, like living a normal family life. The several conceptual steps between "normal family life" and a typical school experience seem pretty clear for most adult minds, especially those in education who have, over the years, internalized the idea of literacy >> knowledge & skills >> occupation & breadwinning & parenting >> something called success. For a teenager, they may be able to intellectually grasp the concept, but as studies from neuroscience and psychology make abundantly clear, the part of the brain that ties those trains of thoughts together and which ultimately connect it to our emotions and conscience to make us tie it to what we want for our future is the last and most complex part of the human brain to develop. In fact, it is what separates us from other life forms on earth. So what you have are many adolescents going through their middle school and high school years (those critical formative years) without a sense of who they are and what they're about as people. Enough time and with enough intensity in that confusing and often angst-ridden time, varying greatly by individual depending on their personalities and life circumstances, and you create a pervasive and persistent metaphysical crisis. If I were to brainstorm the list of factors that greatly increase that confusion and pain in the developmental years, based on 15 years of working with youth (including several years with homeless and street kids, and 10+ years teaching in a tough urban environment), some of the most common are broken homes, learning problems, disengaged parents, bullying and ridicule, schools not meeting student needs because of the focus on test scores and fear of getting into kids' lives, superficial relationships exacerbated by remote communication replacing face to face interaction, lack of free play time.
To go deeper into the insidious phenomenon of a disconnected education system, students are taught that if they are not engaged in school, they are bad. They are supposed to try to learn what we're trying to teach them. There are no alternatives to students who aren't interested in academic pursuits. Yes, we all know that reading and basic arithmetic are important survival skills in modern culture, but punishing a low desire to learn it WHEN WE TELL YOU TO, or punishing a disability by failing students who aren't getting it on time neither improves their will to learn nor increases learning. Instead it drives home the point that you are bad. One natural reaction? "I'm bad? I'll show you bad." We don't say "you're bad" verbatim. We don't have to. The system brands them bad by its very nature. Your grade screams it loud and clear. The body language of the teacher and the parent speak more lucidly than any words (whether agreeing or trying to mitigate the negativity of the grade and body language) is a mere whisper compared to the non-verbal message. You are bad because you are not learning what we want you to learn when we want you to learn. Do we really expect children to trust us when we tell them they should learn this for their own good when we send the unmistakable message that if they don't, they're in trouble. Many people fear clowns because their painted-on smiles contradict their real expressions making them viscerally creepy. We, as a school, are doing the same thing when we say we love and respect you, but we contradict ourselves when we tie our approval to their ability to comply with our demands regardless of what they think and feel about their education. There are ways to bring our message into coherence, but that's for another blog.
Most of us emerge a little dilapidated, but eventually come to terms sometime in the next two or three or four decades without some sort of deep break with reality. But some of us don't and we kill ourselves quietly, or join a gang or hate-group, or expire in some act of defiance against the world, or end up in prison. Or, as we're seeing more of, kill ourselves and take as many as we can with us before we end it. Again, it's a combination of one's personality and their environment that leads our behavior, including the most severe forms of expression.
If making the weapons of mass destruction harder to get can prevent some of the carnage, then altering the environmental roots that cause the urge to do harm would go much further in curbing continued violence. And though the cost would be way cheaper in fiscal terms, the changes we would have to make in how we respect and honor our children's lives are much harder to pay. When we grew up with one way of thinking (about what it means to come through our sturmy und drangy wonderyears), looking critically at how that led to what we have today in this crisis of conscience in many of our youth is tough. Even now, you readers cling to your sacred beliefs about [gun control, what you believe the founding fathers wanted for our country (even if it's way different than what I think -- like your opinion is so much better and more informed than mine even if you haven't spent years of trying to understand it from many different perspectives -- really understand it, I mean, NOT just continuing to pick up evidence for the opinion you got from your father or that you developed when you were 20 and so it must be right). In fact, it's that attitude that creates much of the surreal quality of modern life, that clinging to your beliefs without honestly (HONESTLY) studying how someone else could grow up, be intelligent, and come to a different conclusion, that DISCONNECTS from a grounded center which is a huge contributor to angst.
But, there's more. Fixing this very fundamental quality of life would not only greatly reduce the industrial disease that makes people "go postal," but it would raise all our boats. Who among us wouldn't like to have a little less stress and closer connection to our purpose and each other? The same germ that causes Adam Lanza to lose it over time and do what he did causes you the occasional bout of road rage, as if someone else having to merge because they're unfamiliar with the local traffic person is worth letting your blood pressure rise. The same low self-esteem that makes someone tie a gay person to their bumper and drag them to death makes you relive a moment earlier tonight when someone criticized your lipstick or beer belly. The only difference is in degree here. The degree of environmental influence (positive and negative) and the degree of one's ability to rise above it (which, again, is a function of the interplay between an individual's personality and life experience). If we were all a little less-whelmed by societal expectations and more comfortable with our own sense of how we ought to live our own lives, and more supportive of others and how they might want to live their lives (ESPECIALLY during the essential formative years!), we'd be living in a different place where there are a lot fewer people offing themselves and others. A LOT fewer people with the idea that they should want to get a gun in the first place, and so a lot fewer guns.
Back to the point of the last paragraph. It's a virtuous cycle. (Opposite of a vicious cycle.) If fewer people were overly stressed in their formative years, leading to fewer drop-outs and less antisocial behavior and crime, there would be less perceived need for people to arm themselves for protection and fewer guns. Less crime, more confidence, less "What's this world coming to" mentality. Pretty soon (or in 20 years), things are discernibly better, like New York's crime rate. Maybe Chicago and Detroit and New Orleans can get there if people are willing to do the work to make it happen. In any case, crime is down and who would know if you watch the news for the big stories.
Anyway, as cogent as this argument is, it begs the question: How would a country go about changing one of it's characteristics that derived naturally from the forces that be? Are we smart and willful enough as a free society to do that? We're not the Iron Curtain or Red Square, so how would a democracy go about influencing itself that there is another way of being that would be more productive on many levels, but would take a real and relatively rapid sea change in some of our fundamental beliefs?
Good question, but if you ask me, it starts with a reversal of public education policy, away from the monomaniacal reliance on a single domain of achievement metrics around common core academic standards, and toward a whole child, developmentally based, both literacy- and character-centric measurement of school success. We have the ability, now, to really longitudinally measure those hard-to-determine domains of human behavior that we would like to see. Healthy in body and mind and spirit/emotions throughout our lives. Are we willing to go there and share the low-hanging fruit of multiple-choice test scores with the more difficult self-management?
I think it's time.
No thinking person believes we can eliminate all harm caused by the truly crazy. Those who are hearing compelling sinister voices telling them to kill have been around maybe forever, and may have been burned as witches or banished to the wilds in more primitive cultures, and today they're often institutionalized.
Making weapons harder to acquire might have some nominal effect on the frequency of mass shootings. But if we're serious about severely curtailing repeat offenses, it will take a generation of effort returning to a healthier culture.
HEALTHIER CULTURE. That's a loaded term. All my experience and exposure to life has made it clear that the more we are separated from the fundamental realities of life, the more adrift we are and the more likely we are to become ill in nihilistic ways. People who are centered and grounded, by definition, do not "just want to watch the world burn."
We make life here in 21st Century America an artificially stressful endeavor, particularly in the teen years. With the best of intentions, of course. We want our children to grow up able to take on the world, so we put them into a factory-school and heap upon them the expectation that they conform and obey because we say so. This disconnects them from themselves and each other. It creates an ersatz compulsion without encouraging them to own their situation. They are disconnected from the natural community where we are all working together toward a comprehensible common goal, like living a normal family life. The several conceptual steps between "normal family life" and a typical school experience seem pretty clear for most adult minds, especially those in education who have, over the years, internalized the idea of literacy >> knowledge & skills >> occupation & breadwinning & parenting >> something called success. For a teenager, they may be able to intellectually grasp the concept, but as studies from neuroscience and psychology make abundantly clear, the part of the brain that ties those trains of thoughts together and which ultimately connect it to our emotions and conscience to make us tie it to what we want for our future is the last and most complex part of the human brain to develop. In fact, it is what separates us from other life forms on earth. So what you have are many adolescents going through their middle school and high school years (those critical formative years) without a sense of who they are and what they're about as people. Enough time and with enough intensity in that confusing and often angst-ridden time, varying greatly by individual depending on their personalities and life circumstances, and you create a pervasive and persistent metaphysical crisis. If I were to brainstorm the list of factors that greatly increase that confusion and pain in the developmental years, based on 15 years of working with youth (including several years with homeless and street kids, and 10+ years teaching in a tough urban environment), some of the most common are broken homes, learning problems, disengaged parents, bullying and ridicule, schools not meeting student needs because of the focus on test scores and fear of getting into kids' lives, superficial relationships exacerbated by remote communication replacing face to face interaction, lack of free play time.
To go deeper into the insidious phenomenon of a disconnected education system, students are taught that if they are not engaged in school, they are bad. They are supposed to try to learn what we're trying to teach them. There are no alternatives to students who aren't interested in academic pursuits. Yes, we all know that reading and basic arithmetic are important survival skills in modern culture, but punishing a low desire to learn it WHEN WE TELL YOU TO, or punishing a disability by failing students who aren't getting it on time neither improves their will to learn nor increases learning. Instead it drives home the point that you are bad. One natural reaction? "I'm bad? I'll show you bad." We don't say "you're bad" verbatim. We don't have to. The system brands them bad by its very nature. Your grade screams it loud and clear. The body language of the teacher and the parent speak more lucidly than any words (whether agreeing or trying to mitigate the negativity of the grade and body language) is a mere whisper compared to the non-verbal message. You are bad because you are not learning what we want you to learn when we want you to learn. Do we really expect children to trust us when we tell them they should learn this for their own good when we send the unmistakable message that if they don't, they're in trouble. Many people fear clowns because their painted-on smiles contradict their real expressions making them viscerally creepy. We, as a school, are doing the same thing when we say we love and respect you, but we contradict ourselves when we tie our approval to their ability to comply with our demands regardless of what they think and feel about their education. There are ways to bring our message into coherence, but that's for another blog.
Most of us emerge a little dilapidated, but eventually come to terms sometime in the next two or three or four decades without some sort of deep break with reality. But some of us don't and we kill ourselves quietly, or join a gang or hate-group, or expire in some act of defiance against the world, or end up in prison. Or, as we're seeing more of, kill ourselves and take as many as we can with us before we end it. Again, it's a combination of one's personality and their environment that leads our behavior, including the most severe forms of expression.
If making the weapons of mass destruction harder to get can prevent some of the carnage, then altering the environmental roots that cause the urge to do harm would go much further in curbing continued violence. And though the cost would be way cheaper in fiscal terms, the changes we would have to make in how we respect and honor our children's lives are much harder to pay. When we grew up with one way of thinking (about what it means to come through our sturmy und drangy wonderyears), looking critically at how that led to what we have today in this crisis of conscience in many of our youth is tough. Even now, you readers cling to your sacred beliefs about [gun control, what you believe the founding fathers wanted for our country (even if it's way different than what I think -- like your opinion is so much better and more informed than mine even if you haven't spent years of trying to understand it from many different perspectives -- really understand it, I mean, NOT just continuing to pick up evidence for the opinion you got from your father or that you developed when you were 20 and so it must be right). In fact, it's that attitude that creates much of the surreal quality of modern life, that clinging to your beliefs without honestly (HONESTLY) studying how someone else could grow up, be intelligent, and come to a different conclusion, that DISCONNECTS from a grounded center which is a huge contributor to angst.
But, there's more. Fixing this very fundamental quality of life would not only greatly reduce the industrial disease that makes people "go postal," but it would raise all our boats. Who among us wouldn't like to have a little less stress and closer connection to our purpose and each other? The same germ that causes Adam Lanza to lose it over time and do what he did causes you the occasional bout of road rage, as if someone else having to merge because they're unfamiliar with the local traffic person is worth letting your blood pressure rise. The same low self-esteem that makes someone tie a gay person to their bumper and drag them to death makes you relive a moment earlier tonight when someone criticized your lipstick or beer belly. The only difference is in degree here. The degree of environmental influence (positive and negative) and the degree of one's ability to rise above it (which, again, is a function of the interplay between an individual's personality and life experience). If we were all a little less-whelmed by societal expectations and more comfortable with our own sense of how we ought to live our own lives, and more supportive of others and how they might want to live their lives (ESPECIALLY during the essential formative years!), we'd be living in a different place where there are a lot fewer people offing themselves and others. A LOT fewer people with the idea that they should want to get a gun in the first place, and so a lot fewer guns.
Back to the point of the last paragraph. It's a virtuous cycle. (Opposite of a vicious cycle.) If fewer people were overly stressed in their formative years, leading to fewer drop-outs and less antisocial behavior and crime, there would be less perceived need for people to arm themselves for protection and fewer guns. Less crime, more confidence, less "What's this world coming to" mentality. Pretty soon (or in 20 years), things are discernibly better, like New York's crime rate. Maybe Chicago and Detroit and New Orleans can get there if people are willing to do the work to make it happen. In any case, crime is down and who would know if you watch the news for the big stories.
Anyway, as cogent as this argument is, it begs the question: How would a country go about changing one of it's characteristics that derived naturally from the forces that be? Are we smart and willful enough as a free society to do that? We're not the Iron Curtain or Red Square, so how would a democracy go about influencing itself that there is another way of being that would be more productive on many levels, but would take a real and relatively rapid sea change in some of our fundamental beliefs?
Good question, but if you ask me, it starts with a reversal of public education policy, away from the monomaniacal reliance on a single domain of achievement metrics around common core academic standards, and toward a whole child, developmentally based, both literacy- and character-centric measurement of school success. We have the ability, now, to really longitudinally measure those hard-to-determine domains of human behavior that we would like to see. Healthy in body and mind and spirit/emotions throughout our lives. Are we willing to go there and share the low-hanging fruit of multiple-choice test scores with the more difficult self-management?
I think it's time.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Mmmm.
Antonio Damasio
Baby smiles
Beethoven's 9th Symphony
Breaking Fast
Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal
Crossword and Sudoku
Elegant Infographics
Fresh coffee
Good curry
Google suite of tools
Key Lime Pie (and See's Key Lime Truffle)
Life discussions with kids
Magazines (SciAm, SciAm Mind, Atlantic, Esquire, Wired)
Nabokov and Dostoyevski
Newsroom
Piano time
Pictionary and Taboo and Guesstures
Pinky time (Orange skies)
Runner's high
Sunflower Seeds
Taco Shop Fish Burrito
Thai Lime & Chili Cashews
Thai tea
The Nightly Whisky
Theme music from my favorite TV Shows (Office, Firefly et al.)
This American Life, RadioLab, The News from Lake Woebegone
Thursday TV nights
Tomoko's Ginger Pork
Vlassic Crunchy Kosher Dill Pickles
Safety Net
"We shouldn't be living in a safety net." Imagine a safety net. You see someone fall in it, and if they're still alive, they get out and back to their business.
Unemployment insurance shouldn't be another welfare state, and welfare should be a temporary condition until a person is making their own way in the world. Becoming accustomed to a lifestyle should NOT be an excuse for allowing someone to suckle in comfort on the teat of public funds. If you want charity, go get it from charitable friends. No friends? Your choice. Mentally ill? OK, now there's something society should be doing. Malingering? Out with you. You can go linger on the streets. Life needs to be hard for a human to feel like like she's really living. Yes, moments of comfort and luxury are fine. But too long in that state, and one becomes weak and soft. That's not good except for babies. Overly wealthy? Shame on you. You think you really work that much harder than the hoi polloi? You don't. You work harder than some and others work harder than you. Reasonable wealth, enough to live comfortably on for the rest of your life is enough. Reinvesting your money in real socially beneficial endeavors is great, but growing gratuitous is unhealthy for you, for your descendents, and for the nation. Stop it -- you're now part of the problem, sucking America dry by the a phenomenon of modern civilization which allows your goods to reach everybody in the country and so fill your vaults. You didn't build that, my little friend, and for your wealth to become grotesque is tantamount to royalty of old, luxuriating while your subjects toil for pennies. And the revolution is just and you caused it by your hubris. I'm not for the forced redistrubution of wealth (even though some might argue that's preferable to the eventual downfall of civilization), but I am for the natural consequences which is the ultimate destruction of the system that allowed it in the first place. If the wealthy are so shortsighted that they believe their money and resources are better served in their third home, second yacht, fifth car than in the pockets of the hardworking middle and lower classes (raising all boats), then they deserve the fall of the very buttresses that allow them their selfishness.
Unemployment insurance shouldn't be another welfare state, and welfare should be a temporary condition until a person is making their own way in the world. Becoming accustomed to a lifestyle should NOT be an excuse for allowing someone to suckle in comfort on the teat of public funds. If you want charity, go get it from charitable friends. No friends? Your choice. Mentally ill? OK, now there's something society should be doing. Malingering? Out with you. You can go linger on the streets. Life needs to be hard for a human to feel like like she's really living. Yes, moments of comfort and luxury are fine. But too long in that state, and one becomes weak and soft. That's not good except for babies. Overly wealthy? Shame on you. You think you really work that much harder than the hoi polloi? You don't. You work harder than some and others work harder than you. Reasonable wealth, enough to live comfortably on for the rest of your life is enough. Reinvesting your money in real socially beneficial endeavors is great, but growing gratuitous is unhealthy for you, for your descendents, and for the nation. Stop it -- you're now part of the problem, sucking America dry by the a phenomenon of modern civilization which allows your goods to reach everybody in the country and so fill your vaults. You didn't build that, my little friend, and for your wealth to become grotesque is tantamount to royalty of old, luxuriating while your subjects toil for pennies. And the revolution is just and you caused it by your hubris. I'm not for the forced redistrubution of wealth (even though some might argue that's preferable to the eventual downfall of civilization), but I am for the natural consequences which is the ultimate destruction of the system that allowed it in the first place. If the wealthy are so shortsighted that they believe their money and resources are better served in their third home, second yacht, fifth car than in the pockets of the hardworking middle and lower classes (raising all boats), then they deserve the fall of the very buttresses that allow them their selfishness.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Desire and the Child
We're all just different levels of Child.
My daughter, Shion, throws a much greater fit when something she has is taken away than when she can't have something she think she wants. People get used to things being theirs, and regardless of whether they are entitled to them or not, and regardless of whether they can even really be owned or not, they experience acute separation when they're removed. You see it all over. I have a first-come, first served policy for seating in my computer lab at school, and students get in the habit of sitting in a certain place. If they arrive to see someone in the computer station they normally use, they pretend that it's theirs, even though I've told them not to get attached to a particular station because of the policy.
You might think that as we grow and mature, we'd leave those pain inducing prejudices aside. But we don't and the stakes are even higher. Government and its purpose and its limitations and laws and their interpretation establish what someone is legally entitled to are a huge threat to the fiscal stability of this country. The idea that we should be receiving something from government for unemployment, personal compensation for disaster relief, welfare, and more are things that we may be legally entitled to but taking a look at the whole scheme of life from a simple "living being making their way in the world" sense, the expectation that we should receive ANYTHING from anyone that we haven't specifically worked for under some sort of mutual contract or agreement, the actual entitlement goes away. There was a time before social security and welfare, but once they were established, we got used to them and now we believe they are some sort of absolute right. And it's bankrupting our country.
My daughter, Shion, throws a much greater fit when something she has is taken away than when she can't have something she think she wants. People get used to things being theirs, and regardless of whether they are entitled to them or not, and regardless of whether they can even really be owned or not, they experience acute separation when they're removed. You see it all over. I have a first-come, first served policy for seating in my computer lab at school, and students get in the habit of sitting in a certain place. If they arrive to see someone in the computer station they normally use, they pretend that it's theirs, even though I've told them not to get attached to a particular station because of the policy.
You might think that as we grow and mature, we'd leave those pain inducing prejudices aside. But we don't and the stakes are even higher. Government and its purpose and its limitations and laws and their interpretation establish what someone is legally entitled to are a huge threat to the fiscal stability of this country. The idea that we should be receiving something from government for unemployment, personal compensation for disaster relief, welfare, and more are things that we may be legally entitled to but taking a look at the whole scheme of life from a simple "living being making their way in the world" sense, the expectation that we should receive ANYTHING from anyone that we haven't specifically worked for under some sort of mutual contract or agreement, the actual entitlement goes away. There was a time before social security and welfare, but once they were established, we got used to them and now we believe they are some sort of absolute right. And it's bankrupting our country.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)