As I mentioned in my last post, studies show only a small percentage of us are generally optimistic about life.  And depending on whose doing the studying, optimists can account for 1/3 of us or as few as 1/10 of us.

Picture from www.youthmentalhealth.org

These varying numbers might have allot to do with the notion that many of us think we’re optimists but really aren’t.  I Bet you get this one allot”  I’m an optimist, but facts are facts.” 

Now fill in their long but otherwise brilliant diatribe here _____________________.

Attend this example from TED.com.   The speaker, Mr. Larry Brilliant, identifies himself as an “incurable optimist”.   But alas - listen to the first minute or so. 

Get the idea?

No, optimists are different creatures entirely. 

In varying degrees, optimists are positive about their abilities and their futures.  They are visionary and see opportunity in everyday problems.  They are more tenacious and don’t give in as easily to their doubts, or worse, the good opinion of others.

Yes, to be an optimist, the concomitance of one’s thoughts must be positive and upbeat.  Oh sure, like any human, optimists succumb to pessimistic thoughts, or ever feel defeated or frustrated on occasion, but such an occasion must overcome the inertia of instinct.  Yes, in the same way a “negative expecter” must be persuaded to think positive, an optimist must likewise be disabused.

Its this reflex, this instinct that makes one either an Optimist or a Negative Expecter.

But as I just hinted to above, modern Psychology claims optimism can be learned.  According to Dr. Pierce J. Howard, Ph.D., in his book, “Owners Manual for the Brain”, we simply have to change what we say to others and to ourselves, and through repetition,beat this thing called negativity.  Understand - we can’t change the reflex, but we can subdue it if we’re conscious of it.

Imagine that, everyone can be an optimist! A conscious optimist that is.   Corporate America learned this many years ago and embraced the idea rather fully.  We now say things like “Challenge” and “Proactive”.  That’s because optimists are always supposed to be “for” something and not “against something. 

I liked it before when we simply said, “Houston, we have a problem”, or “If you don’t fix that soon, its gonna bite you in the arse”. 

But no doubt I’m being negative here. 

Maybe I’m not an optimist after all; maybe I’m just against Negative Expecters.  How does one know?

Anyway, optimists bring humanity their hopes, their dreams, there aspirations.  They tell us what the world could be, they inspire us with what each of us might yet become.  They remind us of our nobility, our courage, our compassion, and yes our unconquerable spirit.

Our once beloved and now dead President, John F Kennedy, was being the quintessential optimist when he made his famous speech about putting a man on the moon in less than a decade.

So too was Churchill optimistic to a fault, when he rallied the British people against Nazi Germany, despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

And of course, let us not overlook the passion of Mahatma Gandhi when he forged an unlikely alliance between Hindus and Muslims to battle peacefully for India’s independence from the British Empire.  

Lo.  The Ying and Yang of thought and idea.   A small group describing what’s possible, vetted through the majority who decry how it just won’t work.  And in such a chaotic, bubbling, steaming caldron of human goop, only the few, the most compelling memes, transmogrify into reality.

No doubt we’re all going to Hell in a hand basket anyway.

Tom

Ah, like so many moths, we seem inexorably drawn to the porch light.   Buzzing lightly, we flitter ever so close, basking in the warmth.  Alas a false sense of security, should we get too close, should we stay too long; should we forget our way.

From www.carolinanature.com

Thus all those dead bugs we find each morning.

And likewise, its the bad news that holds our attention, not the good.  The horror, the defeats, the unfairness of life; and yes, always, the impending doom.

Sure, we love to be inspired, to let good news buoy us and make us light!  But its the bad that we’ll seek out and pay most attention to.

At least most of us.

I chanced upon this Pew Research study about news.  According to Pew, here’s what people are generally interested in.  The study took place in America and covers the past 20 years.

    Given in percentages of people who followed these categories of stories closely

                            War/Terrorism (U.S.-linked) - 41%
                            Bad Weather - 40
                            Man-Made Disasters - 39
                            Natural Disasters - 39
                            Money - 35

I was pleasantly surprised that political/celebrity scandals, which always seem to occupy the airways, didn’t rate that high.  Less than 10% of us are interested.   But let a shuttle explode?  80% of us are glued to the television!. 

This I found interesting:  there didn’t seem to be a category about the positive side of the news - nothing of heroism, of success from the pit of despair, of demonstrations of compassion or kindness, and so forth; not a peep about technological breakthroughs or the guy who just broke a sports record.

Not a peep.

Just the bad - the death, the destruction, the misery.

But Why?

I think the  reason people are drawn to the negative side of news is that most of us have negative expectations about life. 

According to Dr Robert Anthony in a book entitled, “Total Self Confidence”,  90% of us or so inclined.    And in the opinion of Dr. Charles Shearin, a management in consultant , well versed in the use and interpretation of the Meyers Briggs Personality Sorter/Indicator, 2/3s of us see life through the stigma of negativity.

By the by…  The Meyers Briggs Personality Indicator is the corporate “industry standard”; its used extensively throughout U.S. Government and large corporations.  Go here for a free test of your personality type.  I think you’ll find it a cut above the usual testing on the web.

But back to my point - I think its germane that when we expect negative outcomes, we generally sift for information that would tend to bolster this opinion. 

Murphy’s Law - that sort of thing.

From www.analog.com

I know, many of you “negative expecters” have this to opine about that:

-  Tom’s a moron and his thesis about people being negative is wrong. 

-  Tom’s a genius and humanity’s negativity is destroying us all!

Yes Virginia, Tom’s a genius and no doubt we’re all going to die.

But maybe not…

It was these ancient “negative expecters” that scanned the tree lines, ever vigilant for danger; allowing humanity to survive.  And today, its these negative expecters that look to every detail, assuring that are appliances, cars and medicines are generally safe; they route out government and government corruption and unfairness.

Negative expecters have flashlights and candles in the house; they save a little money in a coffee can, and hide it behind a cookbook above the stove; they put a spare roll of toilet paper in the cabinet under the bathroom sink.  They are ever vigilant.

Negative expecters gave us Scientific Method, which ensures that what we think we know about Science is believable and provable.

Negative expecters made sky scrapers earth-quake proof, and demanded that a the Bill of Rights be included in the U.S. Constitution.

Such as these, expect defects and problems and ferret them out.  They see the negative, but not in a neurotic sense, as a means to feel victimized, but to feel empowered to create a safer, less accident prone world. 

Attend,this example between an advocate and protractor of personal development.  Just for the sake of making my point, let’s divorce ourselves from the topic, that is, personal development, and instead, simply observe the quintessential struggle between the negative expecter and the object of his scorn.  

See what I mean?  

Yes, negative expecters are life’s fixers.  Indeed, to such as these, humanity owes its very survival.  Even though, we’re no doubt all going to hell in a hand-basket.

And they comprise the majority of humanity.  And so the negative side of the news.   

Here’s a famous picture of a hand basket.  Perhaps we’re all heading to Hell in Dorothy’s basket.  Who knew!  Go here for an interesting aside.

In my next post, the “optimist”…

Tom

If you awakened to another bad news story this morning, join the club.  If you allowed its dour context to pervade your consciousness, and darken your mood - take a bow.  If you find yourself, all too often, drawn to these stories, because they aide in a burgeoning, ever strengthening notion that humanity’s state of well-being is becoming less tenable with each passing breath…

Gee whiz - you’ve experienced the  “Full Monty”!

Today, I followed this link to an AP story from drudge report: 

Yup, no doubt about it,  Everything is seemingly spinning out of control.

Floods, mortgages, oil prices, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorism, war…

Spinning, spinning…

Out of control.

It’s all in the context of course.  That huge conglomerate of organizations, whose mission it is, to bring us the news,  believes that news telling is  describing what’s wrong in the world,  our beloved nation, the elected leaders we have entrusted with our futures, each one of us; and of course - the news reporting media themselves. 

Context…

Indeed, we have learned by rote, the mantra of reliable, accurate news:  that plain and unbiased,  “tell it like it is”, reporting, must solely be delivered by devastating diatribe, a harsh criticism, a “sky is falling” description of wrongness. 

Such is context.

And all the positive news, the stuff human’s do that redeem us, that inspire us, the uplift us? 

Forget it…   A positive spin is never, ever, “telling it like it is.”  Being positive is for cloud-hopping flower-sniffers.  

Not us.  We need our news people to “tell it like it is.”

Hey - that’s a song too…

"Tell it like it is"

And in bygone days,  at the very genesis of news-telling, we received such bad news in small, regulated doses.  A daily newspaper, a nightly 1/2 hour news program  - and for the night owl, the 11PM news.  Sure, they told it like it was back then - but not all day long!

The rest of the time?  We took our time to contemplate, assimilate, to apply critical thinking to what we had just learned.   Living our daily lives gave us a much needed perspective; a context. 

But these days, there is an explosion of  news!  A plethora of around the clock graphic images of death, disease, crime, war, corruption…  We watched Iraq get bombed, OJ Simpson slip through the legal system; we watched hurricane Katrina destroy New Orleans; we learn daily, how inept and ineffective Congress and the President of the United States are, and how Iran is inexorably bringing the Middle East to Nuclear War.

Oh, look, this one’s uplifting:  NASA Warming Scientist:  This is the last chance.

So is this one:  IAEA Chief: Iran Could Make Nuke In 6 Months

And this:  Many Dutch prepare for 2012 apocalypse

Get the idea? 

Its a non-stop barrage of negative images, stories and commentary, no doubt a nefarious plot to make some kind of cartoon or horror movie Zombie out of each of us!

That’s telling it like it is.

Anyway, I thought you could use some good news for a change:  Take a look at these sites. 

 goodnewsnetwork.org

And here:  happynews.com

And here:   Good News Blog

And here:  Positive News

I don’t know if you noticed, but did all those sites have that flower-sniffing look and feel to them?

That’s really the conundrum - how do we make good news seem just as valid; just as authoritative as the bad.

That’s my next post - why doens’t good news feel right; why do we shun it as not “telling it like it is.

Until then

Tom

PS - help me grow - please link, pass the word, and so on.  Also, appreciate any feedback.

In my last post, I mentioned a few innovations that were slowly making their way to the mainstream markets; innovations that would supplant oil of its dominant role.

Attend.

Really. It seems so easy sometimes.  I wonder why all the pessimism in the world.   Maybe its just that some people want failure; it meets with their preconceived world view.   Maybe they’re waiting for government to mandate something; maybe they’d just be complaining about something else if oil wasn’t a problem these days/

But here’s the thing:  folks like you and I have a choice to make:  invest personally in an alternative/low energy device, such as a hybrid car, a wind mill or a pellet stove; or be one of those who do nothing but b*tch.

Or am I just b*tching here myself.

Hmmm.

Tom

Ahhh, nothing gets the ole blood going like a conspiracy!  It freshens the perspective; it enterprises one’s dour thoughts; it aids in our never-wavering pining for victim-hood.

Such is conspiracy - shhh… Whisper ever softly.

Here’s the situation:

Oil prices are rising with staggering speed.  Up and up; due partially to supply and demand, but also partially due to those few diabolical dark figures, who drive up cost by speculating.  Speculating is when you think the price of something is going up, so you buy allot of it now and sell later.  Buy enough of it - gee the price goes up - simple as that. 

Picture from politicalseason.blogspot.com

The value of the U.S.  Dollar is plummeting with equal speed.  I have no clue how this kind of thing happens; but it had much to do with mortgages being let to otherwise unqualified borrowers, much because the U.S. government relaxed regulations and even encouraged these loans.  The end result was that the U.S. government went further in debt by

Picture from commons.wikimedia.org

giving money to banks, and giving Americans rebate checks.  And now imported stuff is far more expensive (like oil), and American real estate and businesses are cheap pickings for overseas investors. 

Humanity’s conscience has been fully aroused by Al Gore’s hysteria about global warming.  As a consequence, we are shunning traditional energy sources that pollute the air with greenhouse gasses.  Yup - oil again.  So feverish is the pitch about this global warming specter that America’s vast oil and natural gas reserves remain untapped.  Actually, that’s only partially right.  These reserves also remain unexploited because we think these industries destroy and pollute the surrounding area.  It seems  greenhouse gasses ain’t the only thing we feel guilty about. 

Picture from endangered.ning.com

With few exceptions, America is loathed by those countries who supply the world with oil.  Indeed, these oil producers have dissimilar governments to ours, and are largely peopled with radicals who covertly do war with us.  We pretend not to notice because of the oil of course.  But we hate doing business with them all the same.  But now, one of the more dangerous developments is unfolding - Iran, who is hell-bent on destroying Israel, is about to possess a Nuclear Weapon.  And despite this, many countries are protecting Iran from any leverage we can muster via diplomacy, sanctions, and so on.

  Picture from paulrevererides.com

Hey - it happens all the time - and America could write the book:  “How to buddy-up with Satan for fun and profit, by only focusing on the part where we get stuff.”

Where were we…

The world’s breadbasket, America, is turning its agricultural resources to the manufacture of biofuel; this to supplement our aforementioned ravenous hunger for more and more oil and to begin a process of relieving this dependence on foreign sources.  Unfortunately, this in turn is causing food shortages in third world countries, causing them to cut down rain forests to plant their own food crops.

picture courtesy of keetsa.com

Oops.  Its those rain forests that are gobbling-up all that greenhouse gas we’re making with our hegemonic oil guzzling. 

picture from www.cameronlawrence.com

China and India have become the developed world’s labor pool.  China, for her hordes of minimally trained factory workers, and India, with a more educated and technically savvy horde.  Of course, we like contracting work to them because they’re cheap.

Cheap, cheap, cheap. 

Consequently, America and Europe send raw materials that they buy from still other countries to China and India for assembly into consumer goods, then we have these products shipped all over the consuming world.  As sort of the middle-me, we all just rake in the big ole’ profits. 

Picture courtesy of http://ykalaska.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/shipping-lanes-316_1866_f2.gif

All this is made possible, of course, by a world-wide network of communication.  By the by - communication isn’t just talk and stuff - Communication is when human beings exchange ideas, agreements, products and money.  Products are what humans create.   We exchange them through barter. 

Barter says, let’s swap my basket of corn for your toaster oven.   

And money is the language of barter.  Money tells us the relative value of things.  It makes the complex and  daunting task of figuring out how many ears of corn equals a toaster, rather common place. 

Who would know otherwise!

Yes, In the end, everything is barter, transported via a world-wide network of communication, and translated into value by money. 

And so, lines of communication are not just Internet connections, telephones and newspapers -they must include highways, railroads, airways and shipping lines.  Because talk is cheap; real gratification requires a brand new Plasma TV, invented in Japan, contracted to China by an American business, and sold in Canada by Walmart!  All made possible by ships, trucks and railroads.

Picture from themarkofaleader.typepad.com

Yes, transport being the cheapest link in the economic affairs of humanity, raw materials are brought to the point of manufacture, and then transported again to the consumer.    Indeed, some products require multiple transport stages in their manufacture.  For instance, automobiles…  Parts are made in one location and assembled in another.  Indeed, even some of the individual parts are made and transported in multiple stages.

In any case, our lines of communication are what make this economic model work.  Communicated by rail, truck, ship our aircraft, to the point of best economic advantage, products are whizzing about, this way and that, in a seemingly helter-skelter fashion.

But that’s what is at risk right now.

Unfortunately, these lines of communication run on oil.  And  just as America controls much of the “language of barter”, that is, the money, a cartel of oil producing states is emerging ever stronger as the controllers of these lines of communication.  Soon, even America’s and Europe’s vast financial reserves will be squandered on oil to run these ever-increasingly  expensive network of communication. 

Said chicken little to the hen house…

Oil that is, black gold, Arab tea…   Oil from people who generally hate us; who don’t care if all of us live or die - after we’re broke of course. 

Damn.

But what’s emerging from all of this doom and gloom is not more dire conditions which will devastate much of the free world, but something truly inspiring;  a testament to human ingenuity and the unstoppable power of free enterprise.  

Yes, While many of us have been lamenting about how bleak things are, still others have been dancing with glee, with the new opportunities that abound. 

Attend…

Vast Solar Power installations…

Smarter Cars…

Hydrogen Cars…

Wind farming throughout Europe, America and Canada…

Electricity from ocean waves in Europe…

More nuclear power plants…

A renewable source of gasoline…

A replacement for home heating oil…

Research, research, research!

And the Arabs are getting nervous…

And so on…

My good friend Rob Patterson drew a rather bleak picture of what life might be like this winter, given today’s trend in prices.  He also hints at a rather chilling future of what many call “peak oil.”  That is, a state in which the world is pumping oil out of the ground as fast as we can, but its still not enough.  And no doubt, this might come to pass before the research and innovation takes firm hold. 

I don’t think peak oil will be the catastrophe many believe; no, not a catastrophe, but a catalyst.  I think as oil escalates in price, other technologies and work-around’s that supplant oil will appear in a rapid and steady stream.  So they must - its what always occurs when free enterprise is allowed to work its magic.

Behold.

Behold the winds of change…  Out with the old, in with the new; that’s the spirit!

And its all good. 

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the conspiracy.

Here it is:

Made you look!

Tom

I figured it all out - This whole confusing truth about humanity being less violent today, than in ancient times.

Truth is like that.  It takes longer cajole into meaning; being such a high standard.   That’s because you have to be careful not to make-up too much stuff.  

That’s the truth I offer - the absolute minimum of made-up stuff.  

And so,  first I’ll cite with authority, Dr. Lawrence Keeley’s watershed work about the prevalence of violence in hunter-gatherer societies. In the graph below, Keeley plotted the instance of violent male deaths as a percentage of tribal size (US and Europe 20th century deaths are given per 100,000 people).  These are supposedly rain forest tribes, the names don’t seem to ring a bell for me.

How about you?

Intuitively, I always believed this - that as humanity got used to living together in modern societies, we’d become less likely to kill each other.  Dr. Keeley’s graph seems to show that.  Indeed, he makes it pretty obvious that life as a tribal hunter-gatherer was not altogether peaceful.  Marauding tribes, petty arguments from within… Violent death seemed rather pervasive in these ancient times. 

And now off to Steven Pinker…  He puts this idea of humanity’s waning propensity towards violence into a scholarly perspective:

And except for his rationale for these lowered instances of violence, Pinker has produced a superb account here.   But alas, even Pinker admits that he’s not really sure why mankind appears to be less violent; he just knows that such is the case.  To fill the void of “why”, he advances the theories of three illuminates:

Thomas Hobbs, who thought hunter gatherers, by just being close to nature, were more brutal;  attacks became pre-emptive, instead of simply defensive.  The lore of the jungle - kill or be killed; that kind of thing.

James Paine, who believed that life became more valuable to us as we matured as a species…

And finally, Robert Wright, with his opinion that collaboration vs confrontation has become more prevalent and necessary in modern societies.

There you have it.  We’ve apparently progressed beyond the barbarism that we once embraced. 

Back to that all-telling graph again:

But its not black and white; indeed, ambiguity abounds in such an idea.  Did you happen to notice how some tribes seemed to be safer for their members than others - just like various countries today.   To me, that should mean something - all hunter gatherer societies are not created equal.  Indeed; couldn’t this mean that ancient European or North American hunter gatherers were likely to be even less violent, since their descendents (us) are likewise less violent? 

I wonder, also, how such brutal places, as say, Somalia, would rank against the tribe of Jivaro.   I wonder how other countries who are peopled with various rival factions of radical Islam, seemingly hell bent on killing each other, and all of us, would rack and stack against one of the above cited examples.

And what if we considered European Jews as a tribe in Hitler’s Germany and graphed them; not just all of Europe as one group?

Moreover, I wonder if incidental death counted in these statistics…  I mean, counting every male that showed some kind of spear wound or trauma is one way of looking at violent death - but in today’s modern world, where efficiency counts, we cause people to die by bombing them, poisoning them, cutting off their sources of food and water.  Granted, people killed with clubs and spears sure makes studying violence easier, but this isn’t how violent death happens today.

Get the idea? 

Questions such as these seem to make it harder to accept any notion of a more advanced humankind, that has progressed up some evolutionary ladder towards some non-violent higher life form. 

No, far more likely,  we  continue to be what we’ve always been.

So why aren’t we clubbing our neighbors to death, and selling their children to some overseas clothing factory?  Why hasn’t humanity become extinct, the result of so many rising mushroom clouds?

Enter Steven Pinker again, with his three philosophers (Wright is actually a journalist).    Could they be right?  Are we viewing death less casually?  Could we have become more reverent about life in general?  Have we created humanity-wide, or at least group-wide interdependence? 

Look.  If humanity’s hardwiring hasn’t changed, (and we have no reason to believe it has), I agree that something else about humanity must have changed.   Indeed, there’s no denying the fact that something has supplanted killing and violence as the consummate problem-solver.  

Something makes one group of people less likely to resort to violence than another… 

I have a hunch.

I think we simply began to live longer when agriculture began to replace hunter-gathering.  It obviously took eons, but as populations began to age, these societies increasingly had opportunity to reflect on the world more maturely, more wisely. 

The number of older people reached a critical mass and thus humanity began the golden age of Adult Supervision.

Attend.

The most profound change between hunter-gatherer societies and more modern societies is the average age of its constituent members.  The average age is important because it influences the society’s discourse and its very identity. 

The above graph, which I plotted with data from Wikipedia, clearly shows that “adult supervision” is a recent development.  Please note how we really didnt start seeing a difference in mortality until the beginning of the 20th century.

Unconvinced?

Picture this:  A world largely peopled by 20 year olds, wielding spears and clubs, perpetually hungry and thirsty and alert for danger;  they  are insulted easily, prone to emotional outbursts, and above all, consumed by a desperate need to prove themselves.  Imagine that few older people survived to offer much in the way of counsel or guidance -  old is someone perhaps in their 30s.  

That must have been the case when we were so violent.

Another point about this whole notion of adult supervision…  In classic Psychology, we theorize that humanity develops in stages, partially based on age, and partially on life experience.  The theory, first put forth by Jane Loevinger is called “The stages of ego development“, and it describes the general path each of us takes as we mature with age and life experience.  The link is to a rather lengthy treatment of her theory.  Here’s a better ego development summary from Steve Pavlina’s forum.

I know - far too much of a science project for a casual blog-reader.  Suffice it to say, that such wisdom as we might find the human spirit capable of, does not begin to manifest until well after aging beyond 30 years. 

And so, it was the influencing and burgeoning wisdom of humanity’s ever aging population that hurled us ever upward…  Not a million twenty years olds; who spontaneously found enlightenment and succumbed to an overpowering need to collaborate and revere life.

Attend one more Video on TED.  The author, James Nachtwey,  describes in poignant detail, humanity’s ignoble brutality, even today.

When I first watched this, I was outraged and saddened.  I thought to myself, humanity hasn’t learned a thing in its long journey to perfection.  I thought of this blog-post and my convoluted message about humans being less violent - how could I cling to such a belief after watching this!

And then I realized it was my reaction - the same reaction most of you will share - that these acts could not be wrought by the likes of us - the perpetuators must somehow be subhuman; certainly in the shadows of our race.   

The fringes he called it in his video.  Certainly no longer what most of us do; just what a tiny “some of us” do.

Comic courtesy of http://www.smbc-comics.com/

And so the journey continues, as all of us Baby Boomers become older and older; and hopefully wiser and wiser. 

I can’t help but wonder what humanity will yet become.  In this seemingly dark time; where fuel costs are skyrocketing, and a terrorist lurks unnoticed in every airport;  and at a time when our planet is seemingly being destroyed by our reckless and heartless use of hydro-carbons…

Have hope - at least humanity is rising to the challenge.

Tom

I bet you’ve read this one before: “Its been a while since my last post.”

Yeah - me too.  I haven’t really written close to my expectations.  Alas, my posts have been infrequent; largely random.  Even this post about posting - as phenomenally important as it is, will take a few days to finish.

Go figure… I’d always thought the ether would be full to overflowing with my powerful prose, blistering repartee, and blindingly insightful commentary.  I imagined vast arrays of interlinked stories on influential websites worldwide, describing their untiring devotion to my every word.

You know - I’d become one of those celebrated illuminates who gets all the admiration and praise; whose quoted  all the time…  That should have been me by now. 

I wonder what happened; I wonder when I fell unawares off the back of the turnip truck.  Such a perplexing conundrum.

Perplexing conundrum… Is there another kind?  That’s like saying “new beginning” or “kind benevolence”.

But I digress.

Each morning starts out well enough, with me bounding out of bed early and settling down in front of my computer, steaming coffee at elbow…  Enthusiasm, ambition, a desire to write; surging effortlessly through noble veins.

But then something happens; something inexplicable; yes, even something diabolical:  My mind starts to focus on writing’s preparations, and not on the writing.  There’s a difference you know - preparations cause me to clean the area around my computer, re-order a nearby stack of books by height (since I can see them, they are therefore a distraction).  Then the little message from Microsoft - Windows requests that I update my computer!  Can’t blame me there - I have to forgo control of my computer for awhile - we all know that you simply can’t do anything on a computer that Windows is loading stuff on behind the scenes - its just too hard. 

And don’t even get me started about how completely disconcerting it is when someone talks to me or interrupts me while I’m focusing on this shadowy, often non-cooperative muse; a blank page in front of me in utter readiness…  Yes, even, while Windows is dutifully, downloading and installing, x43dd3556j, an update of some kind, but no doubt absolutely essential to a future quality writing experience.

Ho hum.

I’ve been mostly about getting ready to write for some time now; and as long as I’ve been getting ready, I’ve let myself off the hook, since I’m moving in the right direction sort of speak.  Yeah, I’m getting there - albeit in a meandering indirect route; I’m getting there.

As part of preparing, I require frequent respites to other websites - just to prime the pump so to speak.  As a matter of fact, the superbly crafted prose above required short visits to  drudgereport.com, digg.com, and of course, fark.com.  But honest, I only skimmed the bare minimum number of stories before returning to the work at hand. 

A few minutes pass..  This time I’m checking for updates on the HP website.  Hey- you can’t expect me to write if my computer isn’t tip top. 

Writing again.  Gee it feels good to be about my life’s work.  Yup - my life’s work, my true calling!  Ahh, writing.

Oh, time to let the dogs out (we have two  Springer Spaniels, named Abby and  Bella).  And yes, not only did I let them out, then let them back in - I interrupted my fierce concentration to get up to give them both doggie-treats as well.

Twice.

Abby’s on the left; Bella’s on the right.  And can they ever fill the lawn with yard-trout!     

Ok…  Time to write some more now.

Hmmm.  What should I write about.

Hey look - my coffee cup is almost empty.  Be right back.

Did I mention that I spent over 30 years in the U.S Navy’s Submarine Force? 

Poetic justice, it is…  We often made light of those “preparers” who never seemed to stop “Polishing the Cannon Ball” - the phrase often used to rebuke a reluctant Commanding Officer, who seemed so consumed with preparing to fight, he’d never get off a shot.  I saw this off and on as a senior evaluator- a Commanding Officer would just keep refining what we called the “firing solution”, a rather complex set of equations and assumptions that would be fed into a Submarine’s Torpedo prior to its launch.  And in delaying the weapon’s launch, would loose the initiative and the advantage of surprise.  As you can imagine, this was a fatal trait - the enemy wasn’t just sitting there waiting for you to achieve “firing solution Nirvana” as it were.

Hence, I learned in the school of hard knocks, yes, in the best traditions of military service, I have been honed over the years to be bold and decisive.   “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead - that kind of thing.”

Yep, prep little, and write your arse off!  That’s me!

I’ll start first thing in the morning, or the day after - absolute latest.  I just need to tweak a few things first. 

Another fishing expedition for inspiration… Oh look  - Rob Paterson  has been busy on his blog.  Indeed, while I’ve been philosophizing about how I should be pounding out my guts on this keyboard, Rob’s posted some thought provoking ideas about gas prices,  World War II movies and their impact on him; a complimentary post about Bob Pageant and so on.  Four or five posts in just two days.  Way to go Rob.

A rather flashy show-boat, him.  No thought of my flagging self-esteem, oh no, he just keeps banging them out like hotcakes.

I just wouldn’t go there, that’s all: Rob Paterson’s Blog.    Don’t do it!

I took another break to prime the ole pump.  And what did I find?  This braggadocios  NASA graphic of the Universe’s epic history!   Notice how the Universe’s stupendous journey seems to have culminated in some satellite, called the WMAP. 

No mention of me or my important work on my blog.  Apparently I’ve been beat out by an inanimate object, built by the lowest bidder.   Its no wonder I succumb to such writing-angst. 

This for NASA:  “Dear NASA, WMAP gets way too much notice in the cosmic view of things; I hereby authorize you to replace your graphic with this one instead.  I think its more appropriate, given that you’re trying to describe why the universe exists.   

Good news.  We’re finally wrapping up here, just one more thing to do…

Shameless Aggrandizement? 

Yup. 

Opportunist subterfuge? 

You bet.

Global Warming? 

What else!

You see, the mere mention of the phrase, “global warming” brings people to my blog who in turn click on my Google adds.  Global warming is great fodder for blogs - and as Al Gore will attest, a proven money maker!

And the more times you say “global warming”, the better for traffic.

Global Warming, global warming, global warming.

Here’s a Ted video that puts Global Warming in proper perspective when compared to all the other problems humanity faces.  And although I might make light of Global Warming, I don’t make light of this great talk by Bjorn Lomborg, a political scientist and superbly gifted speaker.   Please take a moment - if you do nothing else today, at least watch Bjorn.

Bjorn lets us know that humanity has lots of global problems facing us, of which global warming is but one.  I know.  Nothing conjures the degree of guilt and remorse, we feel at the mere thought of our influence on global warming;  nothing sates our bottomless pit of self-loathing like the mere thought of green house gasses caused by domestic farting cows.

All the while rallying us to…  Inaction.

Except for all those budding industries, started by those few pionoeering spirits who attempt to transmorgrify our blackened, remorseful souls into gold.  Who attempt to sell us on such redemptive grace as “going-green”, and “mitigating our carbon footprint”. 

But back to Bjorn - in presenting such a rich plethora of humanity-destroying problems, he also reminds us of how warmly we embrace the general notion that the world is coming to an end in a million different ways; each one as gruesome as another.  Humanity apparently thrives in such wondrous variety and choice!  Indeed, a species as diverse as humanity demands a commensurately diverse demise!

And now comes the real point of my posting… 

Regardless of which human problem we believe is most pressing, collectively we never seem to advance beyond polishing the cannon ball.  We are incapable of changing our headlong dash from the direction we have been moving since the big bang.  Alas, we never seem to get it.

Never. 

Quite a metaphor I think.  My procrastination about writing this humble blog post vs humanity’s inability to solve anything of import until an unavoidable and inescapable cusp has arrived.

Well, at least I’ll end up with some global warming traffic. 

Back to NASA’s depiction of cosmic perfection:

Lo, an Army a million strong, marching relentlessly toward our good-earth; And our answerable cannonballs, glistening contently in the overly hot sun; not quite ready, not yet polished to a high sheen.

Perhaps a fitting epitaph: 

“Thus in this time and place, rests mankind.  Even though they unlocked the very secrets of the Universe, they couldn’t stop eating their young.”

Just kidding - none of this stuff matters anyway. 

Or am I?  Such a perplexing conundrum.

Oh look - flashgames!  

Tom

Click, clack, click clack; oh, the incessant tapping of high-heeled ladies strutting across an expansive granite floor.  Women of all shapes and sizes; but mostly well dressed; smart, business women. 

 
Attend my surreal education about high heels and those who wear them.


This is big - really big.

Click, clack, click, clack…

I noticed that women wearing high heels have a certain gait.  They don’t exactly walk the same way as those in regular shoes; somehow they stand straighter, their backs thrown further back, their fronts thrust more forward… And from my perspective, the look seemed ungainly, uncomfortable or unnatural.

My wife Gail and I were at the Boston South Station Train Terminal.  We sat near one of those coffee kiosks; big cups of hot coffee; luggage sprawled upon two chairs.  And at regular intervals, doors opened, and disgourged a cacophony of urgent humanity; each seemingly intent on a destination, deep in private thoughts, they whisked by us - clearly wanting to be elsewhere as soon as possible. 

We were wanting to be elsewhere too - hence our presence at the train station.

Humanity sure spends lots of time wanting to be elsewhere.

Oh yeah, high heels and stuff. 

Click, clack, click clack…

I mentioned to Gail that wearing high heels seemed like a lot of fuss just to look taller.  “Why do women wear such uncomfortable contrivances as High Heels!  It just didn’t make sense, that’s all,” I asked, rhetorically.  

No matter my question’s rhetorical nature… Gail was able to disabuse my struggle with such a difficult conundrum rather handily. 

She screwed her face in one of those, its all your fault expressions and explained, "high heels are a man’s invention, created solely to make women’s legs look more shapely, her gait more alluring, and of course, it also makes women look thinner."  (Or words to that affect).

Hmmm.  My fault. Somehow I knew it all along.

“You see, when stepping on tippy-toes, the calf muscle bunches up in a more shapely, feminine way.  The posture is forced back, and as unimportant as this might seem - when you’re taller, you don’t look as fat.”

But it seemed rather cruel.  And to think men did this to women.  And by association - me too! 

Just thinking of all those pathetic waifs in uncomfortable high heeled shoes, their calf muscles painfully all bunched up, and all just for me.  I was justifiably wracked with tears of shame and guilt.

But at the same time, dutifully allured. 

Oh, look, the truth will set us free!  Wikipedia says differently…  Apparently French men invented high heels to keep their feet from slipping too far forward in the stirrups while riding their horses.    


Women noticed them forthwith, and apparently found other uses for the high-heeled French hiding boots.  And so, not men, but women!  Women did it to themselves, they bunched up their own calf muscles without men asking them to!

I couldn’t wait to tell Gail and extricate men-kind from our sullied, guilty association with high heels. 

Here’s a video about how women should walk in high heels.  As you might have surmised, its an art form.  As long as your being miserable, Hey! May as well make it count.  May as well display those bunched up calf muscles to best advantage.

Click, clack, click, clack…

Lo. Comes now, a tall woman in denim jeans; high-heels clacking on the polished stone floor; her otherwise quite-alluring bunched-up calf muscles unseen, indeed hidden from view on purpose! 

Too bad.   Her sacrifice and suffering pointless; at least to me.

Washington Post had an interesting piece on the damaging affects of wearing high heels…  Two ladies I know required surgery due to leg damage from high heels.  Years and years of displaying bunched up calf muscles caused the muscles in front of the leg to become damaged from excessive stretching.  Still another elderly lady I know is incapable of walking in flat shoes anymore due to her damaged leg muscles.    

Well, time to hop on the train and head home. 

Click, clack, click clack, Gail’s high heels tapped importantly upon the hard, stone floor.  Just think of it…  Calf muscles bunching up at this very minute.

I had much to learn.

No, perhaps not about high heels, this whole thing was bigger than all that - it spoke to me about humanity’s customs.  They seem so ingrained, so formidable, so unstoppable.  And each of us seems so helpless against their immovable authority.  Yes, custom is the name we give things that are so stupid, so arcane, that they defy explanation.  We’ll call it custom, the inconceivable, the inexplicable, the impractical and uncomfortable.

Ahh, the questions, whizzing about…  Why do married middle -aged women go to church wearing high heels? An elderly woman waddles painfully up the street in high heels - what for?  And lo, even my lovely wife Gail, uncomfortably climbing the steel steps into the train car, wobbling on precariously narrow heels.

Questions.   

Sometimes I simply wonder of it all - how such things got started and how they are perpetuated from generation to generation.  Sometimes I wonder why we can’t so easily change our paths when irrefutable proof of such a need besets us.

But alas, we are who we are.

Oh…  Almost forgot:  How could we part without this quintessential image:  "Sport calf-muscle bunching!" 

They look so thin and graceful; go team go! 

Tom