The feels. We don't say that anymore -- that was so 2019. But words aside, the idea is universal. There are times when they hit us. It makes it almost impossible to be thinking bad conspiracy thoughts about people. For me, it stops the judgments and puts me in the situation of whatever I'm exposed to. 

With the feels, it's about a connection of some sort to someone else's experience, and I join them there. It's the compulsion of empathy. Yeah, I could resist and steel myself against it, but why? Why? I'm so used to my own feeling main-drag most of the time -- why NOT take a few minutes to let myself see a different view of life from another's...eyes? Hypothalamus? Amygdala? 

I'm convinced that if we could sit on a big sectional with a decent sound system, have someone from the other side of opinions play their favorite high school play-list, and talk over the thoughts and feelings that they bring up, that this ridiculous othering and demonizing of the "enemy" would disappear with a few sessions.

This isolationist, echo-chamber, anti-speech immersion common today is the opposite. It lets the thought leaders (influenceers/ pundits/ talking heads/ pecuniary exploiters) corrupt the truth by sticking to their one-sided righteousness broadcast, which, of COURSE, is so much more common-sensical then the other side. When you don't have to feel anything but your own (baser) sentiments amplified and stimulated and emitted, and then radiated out with laser focus against whoever is not [us], of course that's going to excite that default "I'm good, aren't I?" desire. 

When you get a chance to FEEL the sentiment of someone foreign to your sensibilities, it's weird at first. Because there's a this disturbing sense that they have a point, like there's a legitimacy to their perspective, based on their life experience. And sometimes even their deep study of facts. But you've spent the better part of [a decade? lifetime? few years?] simply trying to contradict their thoughts. Yuck. That's just stupid when you realize that, at the core, the intentions are the same: Everyone should get a fair chance to live their lives as they like, free to be who they are and act as they believe is the best for themselves and their family. Yes, it's not that simple in the details, but fuck the motherfuckers who don't acknowledge that we all want the best for ourselves and the long-term prosperity of our country for everyone between our shores. Start with that. And stop disparaging the others' motives (unless they're bigoted), if you must have your "others." (I get it, it's easy to forget I am you. Easiest thing in the world. And, of course, utterly true.)

Journey Plebe Summer

A Journey story. Plebe summer, the day before second set was going to take over...The firsties from first set was trying to instill the fear of God in us, telling us that as tough as they were, second set was going to be ten times worse. We had been flamed on all day, especially the last hour, and they let us know how disappointed they were. We were all out in the passageway, braced up against the wall, and they were fed up with us. They were screaming at us, we weren't ready. "Everyone, go back and get your bayonets and your newspaper articles and be out here in 5 minutes!!" They were apparently not satisfied with our daily knowledge (conversant with two newspaper articles and a boatload of other trivia) and we expected to have to... I don't know -- hold our bayonets at arms length until our already drenched white-works had another pint of sweat dripping down? So we chopped back into our rooms and grabbed our bayonets and newspapers, checked each other over, and chopped back out. When we got back out in the passageway, there, by everyone's door was a pizza box, two liter bottles of Coke, and a watermelon. One of the firsties had brought his speakers out in the passageway and started blasting "Stone in Love" by Journey. We were given carry-on, and of course the bayonets were to slice up the watermelon, and the newspapers to keep it clean. The surprise of what we expected contrasted with the joy of relief, release, and accomplishment was intense. I would feel it again at graduation, getting my wings, and finishing up SERE school. To this day, that's the song lifts me up. "Oh, the memories never fade away."  That was 11th Company. Did everyone do that? I'm curious.

Interest Rates and Inflation

 If you want a simple understanding of this, it is not going to happen. The forces affecting the economy are so many and so varied, that it is an art as much as a science. Some effects happen in a few weeks, some in a few months, some over a year, and some decades or generations. And all those are pushing and pulling in different directions and on different sectors of the economy.

Trying to answer directly and simply would necessarily omit a lot of the nuances and subtleties, and feel really unsatisfying. And even the experts disagree on how things might turn out if you raise prime interest rate a little more or a little less or not at all. 

Raising the prime rate (which is what the Fed does) cascades through the banking lending system and effects certain markets pretty fast (like housing since mortgage rates follow the prime rate -- sometimes quick, sometimes laggy, and sometimes even LEADING the Fed's actions). That affects certain behaviors with home buyers, which indirectly and later will lead to rents changing, and it can affect other big purchases like cars (where you need loans). The prime rate also bumps credit card interest rates, so people will want to (but may not be able to) spend less on their credit cards, so maybe they wait for other middling purchases like appliances or furniture -- slowing inflation on that sector). BUT, inflation makes people want to buy SOONER because if they wait, their $800 they have in the bank can buy the dishwasher today, but the same one might cost $900 next year.

And all the while, energy prices (which impact inflation and every other sector as well) are affected by other influences throughout the world like hurricanes, wars in Europe, OPEC actions and reactions, bringing refining capacity up or not... Energy prices affect how much people have left over after their gasoline and electricity bills, which are NOT tied as closely to the prime rate.

And of course there are seasonal effects, supply chain snafus still finding their way back from the pandemic (and still being effected by China's "No COVID Policy" which shuts down various economic centers in a chaotic fashion), and literally, the price of [tea? wheat? rice?] in China.

But overall, raising the prime rate can slow things down, eventually enough to get inflation under control (hopefully) without causing too painful of a depression. Because, in the opinion of most economists, runaway inflation and stagflation would be even worse than a depression.

I'm no economist but I've spent a few years reading Business Week, Forbes and the WSJ, and listen to Marketplace every afternoon on the way home from work and it lets me know how much I don't know, and how much of it is "best guess" work by the people actually making the decisions.

September 19th, 2022 Latest Musings

 I'm running into the beginning of the end for my potential to contribute to the world in a way that makes me feel like it mattered. I don't know if it will matter -- by making things better (cause it might make things worse, whatever that means), but I don't know if it won't, either. We can't know. I just have a feeling that more people better understanding their world is a net positive.

Understanding the world -- which could include a few different major ways (modalities) of understanding:

• My relationship with and role in this world.
• How the world works. (Various parts: physical science, social, who am I, how do I live and behave in the world, why things are including people and my relationships with my fellow travelers and with the universe).
• What's important to me, to those in my circle and community, and to the current and future generations of humans.

I have  a feeling that the more people who can appreciate being alive and aware, for its own sake, the better they can cope with the other interesting events and challenges they encounter during their lives.

I really think the greater number of people who see the world as a place and time they can make other people's lives better, and their own along with it, and their own because of it, each of them multiply the betterment for others as well as themselves.

Living potently

 I was thinking of myself and my middle school students, and the time we waste on screens. I don't like it for me or for them. Since this life is finite, it keeps us from those things that make life feel really good.

Sure, some time to relax, decompress, shut-down after a tiring day is also healthy, within limits. And it's the limit. It begs the question: then what SHOULD we be doing when we're done relaxing and with our day job, which for me is teaching and for the students is learning.

If you've ever done something important, you can feel it. When you work hard to help someone who needs it, there's a feeling -- have you felt it? When you're trying to pay the bills and feed the family, and you're working for that, you feel it. When you're cultivating your garden knowing you're going to eat the fruit of your labors, you feel it. It's affirming. When you're building relationships with your colleagues at work by collaborating on something and heading out to a happy hour on the way home, it feels like you earned it.

Filling up the days with things like that, along with R&R when you need it sets up a healthy mental place to be. The soul-nurturing activities of being part of your world, working to be an important part of it, and taking your own time continuing to do things that honestly cultivate your soul -- it builds up your sense of ownership of your life and connection with the world, you can feel that you belong.

When you don't do those things, but spend your time not doing those things, the opposite is true. The sense of potency and meaning are far away and there's a drifty feeling, unmoored to anything that really matters to you, and that doesn't feel good. It's not bad every once in awhile, but if that's one's main thing, it sets you up to be tossed about by the vicissitudes of life, instead of anchored to the key elements of your purposeful existence. 

Incels and femcels

 More of a symptom of the unexamined appropriation of the typical societal norm. Why would anyone in their right mind just adopt beliefs without challenging them for their utility, health, effectiveness. 

When you're sitting there deciding on your purpose in life, are you adopting one that is full of shit? As if your purpose was to mate with a handsome man, have a beautiful, normal kid, make a million dollars a year, own lots of things and die? Of course not, shut the fuck up. Who wants to live in that world where that's some kind of goal? Those things happen to people, but what to what end?

Get out of your head, sit your ass down and start from the basics. Your purpose in life is to discover your talents and joys (both), go ahead and develop and engage in them in a way that offers the people of the world, or the world itself, your service.

There is nothing more beautiful and attractive than someone immersed in their natural abilities, doing their best to help out the world. People want to be around that and work with that and celebrate that. Along the way, you'll be running into like-minded people, get to know and love them, and get to bask in the coolness that those relationships bring. You can hang, do some things you all like to do, and then if something romantic happens, great! And if it doesn't, you're having an amazing time with awesome people living the dream. SHUT UP about not having the thing that everybody ELSE wants or says you should want. Fuck that noise. You define your own life and world on your terms and stop victimizing yourselves in lives of stressful depression.

Little Seed

 Little seed, sown under some loamy soil, let the water soak through your porous skin and start your starchy core. Let the suns warm shine wake your sleeping germ. Push out your first shoots and roots, and drink the moisture quick, and with oxygen mix and stir the stem, send up your tender leaves to seek the light of life. Breath in the carbon gas and work your magic chemistry to power the green machine that transforms the dead to live, and grow and finally to bloom, to dry and drop another little seed.